Abstract:
This thesis reconstructs a history of coffee production, processing, and marketing in Limmuu
Saqqaa, Jimma zone, from ca. 1891 to 1991. The study covers a century, starting from the
incorporation of the study area and its surroundings into the Ethiopian empire to the downfall of
the Därg regime. The study period was the era when peoples of the country as a whole including
the study area had passed through major political and socio-economic changes. Several sources
were collected and carefully analyzed for the reconstruction of a history of the study subject.
Published and unpublished written documents, oral sources, and some archival sources have
been used to write the thesis. Qualitative research method, which is more narrative and
descriptive method, has been applied for this study. The thesis explains how different Ethiopian
regimes have brought impacts on coffee production, processing, and marketing in Limmuu
Saqqaa during the period under study. The research findings exhibit that coffee production and
marketing which had been already expanded by the indigenous peasants during the second half
of the nineteenth, was mostly abandoned and claimed by the näfţäñña lords after the area was
conquered by Menelik’s forces. Thus, the situation greatly disturbed the peasants' production
and benefits. Though the expansion of coffee production and marketing could revive by the
1920s, largely by the new governors, during the subsequent one and half decades, due to both
global and domestic factors it was declined. However, following an increase in coffee demand in
the world and the suitability of some conditions in the country, coffee production and marketing
in which the participation of indigenous peasants to some extent increased between the 1950s
and 1960s. Consequently, following the downfall of the imperial regime, with the implementation
of the 1975 land reform of the Därg government, peasants were given lands where they had
grown coffee and other crops. Even though still the landholding system and different policies of
the military regime seriously affected the livelihood of coffee growing farmers, its production
and marketing were largely expanded in the study area. During this period, coffee processing
and quality control were also given more attention in the study area through different
institutions. Thus, coffee production, processing, and marketing have passed through different
stages. Indeed, there were many factors (globally and domestic) that facilitated and hindered
coffee production, quality and marketing in the study area as analyzed in the main body of this
thesis.
