Coffee Production in Nicaragua

Coffee of an excellent quality, and probably equal to any in the world, may also be produced indefinitely in this republic; but for the reason that hitherto it has been exceedingly difficult to get to market, it is not very extensively cultivated. If the attention of the people of Nicaragua should be seriously directed to the production of coffee, it would prove a source of great profit.  

-From Nicaragua: its people, scenery, monuments, by E.G. Squier, 1851

Nearly 170 years after Mr. Squier wrote of the great potential for coffee production in Nicaragua, Covoya couldn’t agree more. We came to Nicaragua in 2014 and four years later opened the most modern coffee mill on the country in Matagalpa, where almost a third of the country’s coffee is grown. This year we sent Samantha Romero to Matagalpa as our “specialty coffee coordinator” in recognition of the great potential we see for quality coffee in Nicaragua.

Samantha works with coffee farmers in Nicaragua on improving quality during processing

Squier believed in the potential for Nicaraguan coffee when the country’s entire annual production amounted to less than 1,000 bags. Although Squier wrote of visiting “plantations” in the 1840’s, they would have been quite small when coffee production aimed at export was only 14 years old. The “serious” commercial production he anticipated did not begin until the 1860’s, just a few years after an American named William Walker, generously described by some historians as an “adventurer,” was quickly disimbued of the mistaken notion that he ruled Nicaragua, an idea that would become a bad habit among Americans.

The Nicaraguan agricultural sector apparently agreed with the former U.S. Envoy, E.G. Squier. In 1875, coffee production reached 12,000 bags, then more than doubled in just five years, reaching 26,000 bags in 1880. By 1890 production had more than doubled again, to 64,000 bags. Production reached 151,000 bags by 1908 and nearly a quarter of a million bags by the end of World War I. Prior to the war, most Nicaraguan coffee was exported to France, but during and then after the war, as with the rest of Central American coffee, exports shifted to the United States.

Today, Nicaragua exports over 2 million bags of coffee from 126,000 hectares, approximately half of that going to the U.S. and Canada.  Over 330,000 people in Nicaragua work in coffee, which is 15% of the labor market and more than 50% of the agricultural workforce. Surely, Squier could not have imagined any of this as he toured a country of 100,000 people producing less than 1,000 bags of coffee in the 1840’s.

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But, in terms of specialty coffee, he might recognize the aspiration. The 25 years between Squier’s writing in 1851 and a significant increase in Nicaraguan coffee production in 1875 mirror the roughly 25 years coffee roasters have been looking to Nicaragua for greater volumes of specialty coffee. Even though Nicaragua was widely recognized as an emerging specialty origin in the late 1990’s, Covoya Specialty Coffee Coordinator in Nicaragua, Samantha Romero, says that perception has not kept pace with growth in the specialty coffee roasting sector.

“These days, Nicaragua is not near the top of the list when coffee roasters are thinking about origins for specialty,” she says. “But we are here to change that.” 

In addition to the seemingly ever-present political tensions, somewhat acute in recent years, Nicaragua’s specialty producers have faced coffee plant diseases and, of course, low prices. Political instability and leaf-rust are difficult to face at any time, but when international prices for coffee are extremely low, continuing is a hard sell.

“Many farmers have decided to stop growing coffee and move on to crops with less price volatility,” says Romero. For those who decide to stay with coffee, quality improvements are a way forward and Romero is helping to define that path.

“They are so eager to learn about how adjustments in processing can improve quality,” she says. “For many farmers, specialty is a new idea and a huge challenge, but they understand this is an opportunity, maybe the last opportunity, to continue growing coffee.”

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