Coffee may represent the highest total value of all traded agricultural commodities, but it has high volatility in price. This volatility affects farmers' decisions at strategic and tactical level, to adopt and manage coffee-based land use options. Where previous analyses of the profitability of various land use options have focused on long term averages, decision making in practice will follow the ups and downs of farmers expectations of benefits, that depend on their learning style and the information available. The FALLOW Model includes a highly stylized representation of a decision-making process by farmers that is mainly based on an integration of past performance and the most recent experience at landscape/community scale. Based on this model, price volatility substantially increases the time period required for farmers to settle on the mulistrata, mixed production system ('shade coffee') that probably represents the best strategic choice in the long run, for both farmers income and impact on watershed functions.
Publication year
2004
Authors
Suyamto, D.A.; van Noordwijk, M.; Lusiana, B.
Language
Indonesian
Keywords
coffee, watersheds, fallow, prices
Geographic
Indonesia
