On the Role of Coffee in Rural Household Income and Civil Conflicts in Burundi

Abstract

Generating over 60 percent of the total exports revenues and much of the foreign exchange needed to secure, to service and to pay off external debts, coffee, the main cash crop for more than a third of rural households, is arguably the pillar of Burundi‘s political and economic stability. Knowing that coffee farming has been subject to government enforcement, the objective of this study is to examine whether the focus on compulsory coffee-farming follows the economic principle of revenue maximization for farmers. We examine whether coffee is the largest contributor to rural household income, analyze its contribution to rural income inequality, and the role it plays in shaping the public policies. While explaining why administrative enforcement of coffee farming has persisted since the colonial era, we provide a plausible explanation for why coffee is the root of the series of civil conflicts in Burundi.