3. Results
3.3 Successful strategies
3.3.1 Land expansion
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smaller amounts. Over a cup of home-made tea —“we don’t drink coffee, it has a strange taste; we just sell it”—, the woman explains that growing fruit trees is necessary due to the
“wavy” behavior of coffee prices. For her, the most valuable crops are “coffee for the money and tea for tradition” (F04). Whether as main crop or additional source of income, coffee is proving to be a successful product that improves living standards in agricultural households with less effort than other crops.
3.3. Successful strategies
Tea has always been part of the intrinsic culture and economy of the region. Coffee, on the contrary, is a drink that has no emotional, cultural or, until recently, economic link to the place. Coffee has been grown in Pu’er for decades now, but few people imagined that in 3-5 years this industry would develop as fast as it did.
Many interviewees do not agree with the affirmation that Pu’er coffee has experienced tremendous growth in the past few years. Particularly, government officials, members of the Coffee Association in Kunming, and university professors argue that this phenomenon has been developing steadily since the late 1980s. An insider of the Coffee Office explains that the growth of the coffee industry in Pu’er should be divided into two periods: industry growth and quality development, the latter being the current situation (G01, March 18, 2014). This study, however, argues that the improvements in the industry prior to the mid-late 2000s were not significant and did not generate major changes in the size, volume or profits of coffee production. This study will consider the last four years as the period of significant development of the coffee industry in Pu’er: specific policies were formulated in the late 2000s, reliable data started to be issued around the year 2004, and coffee area escalated around 2010. The fast development of the last years is a phenomenon that occurred and still occurs primarily thanks to three successful strategies: expansion of production, raising quality standards, and promotion.
3.3.1. Land expansion
Data on the expansion of coffee cultivation in Pu’er shows the fast development that took place in the past 3 to 5 years. Not only Pu’er but also the entire province of Yunnan has
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experienced a booming growth of the coffee land. Table number 2 shows the increase in area cultivated in different Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2012.
Province 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Yunnan 24.3 30.1 43 61.31 91.86
Hainan 0.14 0.17 0.22 0.25 0.28
Sichuan 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33
Total 25.77 31.6 44.55 62.9 93.48
TABLE 2: Coffee cultivated area in China, 2008-2012 (Unit: thousand hectares). SOURCE: Pu’er Coffee Office, 2013 (modified)
Clearly, the most dramatic increase occurred in Yunnan province, particularly from 2011 to 2012. In four years, the area cultivated in Yunnan almost quadrupled. Within Yunnan, Pu’er is the prefecture that experienced the fastest development. Table number 3 shows the area increased and the yield for each coffee-producing region in Yunnan in 2012.
Regions New area (hectares) Yield (tons)
Pu’er 13866 36500
Lancang 12184 3901
Dehong 2448 17062
Baoshan 521 20000
Xishuangbanna 926 16018
Honghe ---- 1375
Nujiang 74 367
Wenshan 38 88
Yuxi ---- 2
Total 30057 96051
TABLE 3: New area expanded and yield for coffee in Yunnan in 2012. SOURCE: Pu’er Coffee Office, 2013 (modified)
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The first column shows that almost half of the total hectares of new land for coffee in Yunnan were added in Pu’er. Similarly, Pu’er was home to almost 40 percent of the total provincial output of coffee. Finally, table 4 presents the main indicators of growth for coffee industry in Pu’er in the last nine years.
Year Area (hectares) Yield (tons) Exports (tons)
Foreign exchange (ten thousand USD)
2005 8805 10773 4508 1100
2006 7832 11713 7053 1603
2007 9279 12504 7789 1824
2008 11405 14052 8510 2404
2009 14539 17421 12311 3026
2010 18445 21234 13716 4160
2011 29195 27719 13900 7427
2012 43333 36500 24700 9994
2013 47751 45000 36000 7932
TABLE 4: Cultivated area, yield, exports and foreign exchange for coffee in Yunnan in 2012. SOURCE: Pu’er Coffee Office, 2013 (modified)
Up until 2009, the cultivated land in Pu’er increased at a slower rate, and even decreased in the year 2006. In the last four years, however, the area cultivated has increased more than 3 times. In total, the number of hectares cultivated in Pu’er in 8 years has expanded 5.4 times.
Simultaneously, the tons of coffee exported increased almost 8 times between 2005 and 2013.
Revenue from coffee in Pu’er during those years has incremented 7 times. As can be observed from the data, coffee land in Pu’er has been growing at and average rate of 1.5 times every year, contributing to the fast growth of cultivated land in the entire province of Yunnan. This, in turn, has translated into booming revenues and increased exports.
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In spite of this quick development, the government of Pu’er plans to further increase the land available for coffee cultivation in the next 5 to 10 years. By 2015, the total area cultivated will reach 60,000 hectares; in 2020, this amount is expected to increase up to 66,667 hectares.
While slower than in previous years, the future plans of expansion still constitute an ambitious plan for coffee in Pu’er and a confident bet of the government on this industry. The present and future growth rate is noticeably high, particularly when compared to the development of tea industry.
Year Area (hectares) Yield (ten thousand tons)
Output value (ten million CNY)
2008 8.62 4.29 148.9
2009 9.06 4.44 169.3
2010 9.22 4.46 217
2011 9.57 6.08 361.8
2012 9.73 7.87 603.8
TABLE 5: Area, yield and output of tea in Pu’er, 2008-2012. SOURCE: Pu’er Coffee Office, 2013 (modified)
The area cultivated for tea in Pu’er city increased only 1.1 times from 2008 to 2012, in contrast with the 3.8 times increase for coffee in the time span. Coffee production growth rate for those four years also surpassed the rate for tea in almost 1.5 times. Only tea surpassed coffee in growth of revenue, although the difference is not significant.
Given the evident increase of coffee land, it is necessary to question how this expansion was made possible. Some environmentalists and coffee experts argue that such a fast increase of land can only be possible if forests are cleared (Craves, 2013; Gibson, 2013; S02; & S03). In Pu’er, this question is viewed differently. All interviewees were asked if the expansion of the land was a gradual process and how the acquisition of new land for coffee took place, followed by more specific questions on whether they believed forests were being cleared to make room for coffee plantations. Not surprisingly, all interviewees insisted that no logging activities were taking place in Pu’er, at least as a result of coffee’s economic boom, and they offered alternative explanations to this phenomenon. These explanations were surprisingly
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homogeneous among all subjects. In other words, all interviewees offered almost identical explanations to the question of land expansion and logging, using similar sentences, illustrations and emphasis. It might be thus argued that there is an “official interpretation”
learnt by all people in Pu’er, even those who are not directly involved in coffee production.
Logging has been banned in Yunnan since 1998. There is, however, a practice that is not penalized and that could constitute a legal alternative to clearing forests while using them.
The government allows the so-called “multi-crop replacement farming” (B01; & B05), by which farmers can cut down trees in the forest as long as they are replaced by others, in this case coffee trees. This practice is legal “if the farmer receives the government’s consent”
(B05).
Aside from replacement, the two methods claimed to be used in Pu’er for the expansion of land are crop change and use of rotation and wastelands. Changing the type of crop cultivated to coffee seems to be the standard answer. All interviewees named corn and sugarcane as the two types of crops that farmers are abandoning in favor of coffee. These kinds of crops require big pieces of land and also cause water and soil erosion. Substituting those short-term crops for long-term crops like tea or coffee is a good alternative for farmers, both environmentally and economically. Corn and sugarcane are low-yield crops that sell for less money than tea or coffee. The government encourages farmers to shift from extensive cultivation (big cultivated area, low yield) to intensive cultivation to increase the production of their land. The other practice encouraged is using rotation fields and reclaiming agricultural wastelands to increase output (G02, March 18, 2014; & B08). Government officials explain how this practice is related to the abundance of land resources and scarcity of labor force in the region. Pu’er city has an area of 45,385 square kilometers, bigger than, for instance, Taiwan; however, its population is one tenth that of the island. It is thus advised to plant coffee —a crop that requires less labor input— on lands that are not being used or that are regenerating. This way, farmers can use the land available without hiring external labor (G02, March 18, 2014).
No matter what method is used, it has to be done within the general guidelines for mountain farming in Pu’er. Interestingly, this explanation was presented by three different interviewees (B01; G01, March 18, 2014; & G02, March 18, 2014) using almost exactly the same words and illustration. The mountain, depicted as a triangle, is divided into several sections
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according to the crops that can be cultivated in each altitude. The lowest elevations, which in Pu’er are 370 meters above sea level, correspond to lands where vegetables and fruits are grown; rubber tree is cultivated in the next section of the mountain; coffee, that requires high elevations and humidity, is grown in lands from 900 to 1,400 meters above sea level; above 1,400 meters, tea in planted. The rest, the top of the mountain, is forest that can not be used for agricultural purposes. An informant of the Coffee Association explains that “while the rest of the sections may change and mix, the part dedicated to the forest does not move” (B01).
With this graphic representation, government officials attempt to emphasize that, even though coffee can be grown in higher altitudes, the rules of Pu’er local government do not allow it.
Whether it is by replacement, change of crop, or use of rotation and waste lands, the government of Pu’er has projected the fast expansion of the land available for coffee for the next decade. Some statistics suggest that currently the land cultivated with coffee represents only around 30 percent of the total area available for development (Li, Li & Luo, 2011, p. 73).
This means that many resources are yet to be used, and that Pu’er can produce more coffee that would potentially satisfy a greater share of the domestic market. Yet this affirmation contrasts with environmentalist voices that insist on the depletion of resources in the Pu’er-Xishuangbanna region (S02; S03).