10 - Coffee expansion and the strengthening of the Liberal model of development, 1910–50

Summary

The continuous growth of the production of coffee between 1910 and 1960 is the most decisive phenomenon in the recent economic history of Colombia. The country became the second most important world supplier of coffee, and the most important supplier of mild coffees. The impact of coffee expansion on economic growth, on the diversification of the productive and occupational structure, and on the distribution of income among classes, groups, and regions is therefore central to contemporary historical analysis. Given the present state of research, it is impossible to give a full and precise account of this impact and of the multiple relationships between the coffee sector and the rest of the sectors of the Colombian economy. Many themes still remain unstudied and require the slow construction of time-series and the systemization of basic document sources. Even then, it would be odd to write about coffee in Colombia without making ample reference to the external parameters by which it is circumscribed.

During the First World War, Colombia became a first-order coffee exporting country. The annual average of production between 1915 and 1917 was 800,000 bags of 60 kg. The annual rate of growth of Colombian production from 1915-17 to 1970-2 was 4.2 per cent, against an annual growth of world consumption averaging 2.2 per cent for the same period. It was logical that the highest rates of growth should have been reached in the earlier periods.