Coffee production in Venezuela

Coffee production in Venezuela began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Premontane shankarof the Andes mountains.

[2] Coffee production in Venezuela led to the "complex migration" of people to this region in the late nineteenth century.

[4] Coffee production occurs in the Coast Range and the western Andean region with the only requirements being sufficient top soil and moisture.

It is also the region where, in the 1860s, coffee production boomed as the migrating peasants could resist the hegemony of the large land holders.

[10] The coffee growing area was also extended to marginal agroclimatic region in the elevation range of under 600m 600 metres (2,000 ft), called the premontane dry forest, though the area produced low yields (less than 300 kg per hectare each year), which was made good by the enterprising small farmers with crop diversification.

[1] Statistical survey has indicated that coffee plantations are generally in the elevation range of 800–1,700 metres (2,600–5,600 ft) on the hills of the Andean with slopes of 5 to 60%.

[2] In Venezuela, known as the land of plantations dependent on slave labour, cocoa became the major crop in the 1770s, overshadowing tobacco.

[13] During the rule of Antonio Guzmán Blanco as governor of a few states (from 1871) in the late 1880s when he was known by the epithet “Illustrious American”, Venezuela witnessed all round development (development of Caracas is largely attributed to him) and coffee production increased rapidly as there was an additional support in the form of loans from foreign countries.

While two pickings occur annually (October and November; December, January, and part of February) the latter one provides the larger harvest of the two.

More than 82,000 tonnes of coffee were produced in 1919;[22] however, poor agricultural practices, soil erosion, less incidence of rainfall and over use of soil strength caused a drastic decline in the yield, in the 1920s, which resulted in the decline of the coffee industry in the country; petroleum extraction compounded its downfall.

Coffee grown in Venezuela is largely consumed by locals and the rest is sold mainly to the United States, Belgium and Germany.

Mérida typically displays fair to good body and an unemphatic but sweetly pleasant flavor with hints of richness.