Paper short abstract:

This paper surveys botanic and agronomic studies produced by the Angolan Agricultural Division between 1898 and 1939 to analyse the ways in which both African farmers and colonial settlers used and adapted indigenous coffee reserves for commercial exploitation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper surveys botanic and agronomic studies produced by the Angolan Agricultural Division between 1898 and 1939 to analyse the ways in which both African farmers and colonial settlers used and adapted indigenous (robusta) coffee reserves for commercial exploitation. The paper is specifically interested in the different cultivation methods adopted by African smallholders and colonial planters and the bodies of knowledge which both groups applied to robusta's natural environment in Angola, the country's famed montane 'cloud' forests. Besides the issue of scale which obviously separated African from European planters, we examine different methods of planting, inter-cropping, shading, soil preservation, and processing. While there was little technological innovation in coffee cultivation on either side throughout this period, this paper aims to assess the specific contributions of African and European farmers to the transformation and management of the Angolan coffee landscape.