Open Access
American Research Journal of History and Culture
ISSN (Online): 2379-2914
DOI: 10.46568/arjhc
Coffee and Food Crop Production in East Wallaga in the 20th Century: An Overview
Abstract
Coffee planting is not an easy task. It needs great care starting from planting coffee seedlings until it
grows and give fruits and even afterwards. We can say the works related with coffee plantation is both time and
labour consuming.
This paper focuses on the production of coffee and food crops in East Wallaga, Ethiopia, in the twentieth century.
It tries to discuss two main ideas: the introduction and production of coffee in East Wallaga and the main features
of crop production in the area. Even though there are works that done on coffee, most of them are focus on West
Wallaga region. The attention given for East Wallaga is very little. Therefore, this work tries to fill this gap that
left by other written materials so far and contributes something in enriching the knowledge related with coffee in
East Wallaga.
The paper deals with the general views of the origin of coffee, its introduction to east Wallaga, its production and
its social and economic contributions to the local people of the region and to the country as a whole. It also tries
to discuss the local laboring system in the production of coffee and the impact of land measurement system on the
coffee production in the beginning of the twentieth century.
In addition to coffee, the paper also deals with some ideas with production of crops since the area of East Wallaga
is one of the richest regions of Ethiopia where a variety of crops are grown. The paper also discusses the relation
between coffee and food productions and their impact on the local farmers. Lastly, it mentions some important
factors that endanger the East wallaga peasants’ self- sufficiency position.
In writing this paper, the researcher was unable to get literatures that are directly related to East Wallaga region
in relation to the topic. However, I tried my best in using other different literatures that are indirectly related to the
region. The researcher also used some oral informants to fill the gap that created by shortage of written materials
concerning the area I focused on.
