Coffee Descending to the Sea and Coconuts Climbing to the Mountains: Developments in Cash-Crop Cultivation in Minahasa, c. 1850–1875

This paper examines how the cultivation of coffee and coconuts, two major export crops in colonial Minahasa, impacted the local society. Both crops underwent regionally different developments. In the inland Tondano region, coffee production expanded simultaneously with the increase in the population and food production. In order to meet the demands of the government, cultivators increased their coffee production by adopting more land-intensive techniques. The population seems to have increased as a result of their efforts to expand the amount of labor required for coffee and rice cultivation. As the population grew, people increased rice production, adopting more labor-saving agricultural methods. In the coastal regions, increase in coffee cultivation was a more spontaneous development prompted by the rising price trend and the possibility of private ownership of the gardens after opening the land for cultivation. As the inland regions increasingly specialized in coffee and rice production, they obtained other foodstuffs such as coconut oil and fish from the coastal regions. The latter increased coconut cultivation to supply the demand from the interior and received rice in return. Improved roads and transport reinforced the local trade of these products. This is how in Minahasa, enforced coffee cultivation stimulated foodstuff cultivation in the interior, which enabled population growth there. Lack of food apart from rice in the interior stimulated the expansion of coconut cultivation on the coast, creating a division of labor between the environmentally different regions.