Coffee Is Not Forever: A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust

306 Pages·2019·24.571 MB·English

by  McCook, Stuart George

Stuart McCook
Coffee Is
Not Forever
A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust
s e r i e s i n e c o l o g y a n d h i s t o r y
Coffee Is Not Forever
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Coffee Is Not Forever: A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust
Coffee Is Not Forever
A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust
Stuart McCook
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McCook, Stuart George, 1965- author.
Title: Coffee is not forever : a global history of the coffee leaf rust / Stuart McCook.
Other titles: Ohio University Press series in ecology and history.
Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2019. | Series: Ohio University Press series in
ecology and history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026882 | ISBN 9780821423868 (hardback) | ISBN 9780821423875
(paperback) | ISBN 9780821446843 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Hemileia vastatrix. | Coffee rust disease--History. | Coffee rust disease--
Environmental aspects.
Classification: LCC SB608.C6 .M33 2019 | DDC 663/.93--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026882
For Lucía, my light.

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Abbreviations and Acronyms xxi
Chapter 1 The Devourer of Dreams 1
Chapter 2 Coffee Rust Contained 17
Chapter 3 The Epicenter: Ceylon 36
Chapter 4 Arabica Graveyards: Asia and the Pacific 65
Chapter 5 Robusta to the Rescue 90
Chapter 6 The “Malaria of Coffee”: Africa 108
Chapter 7 Coffee, Cold War, and Colonial Modernization 125
Chapter 8 A Plague Foretold: Latin America 140
Chapter 9 The Big Rust 171
Chapter 10 Coffee Is Not (Necessarily) Forever 197
Notes 207
Bibliography 235
Index 271

Illustrations
Figures
1.1 The disease triangle 3
1.2 Coffee monoculture, nineteenth century 4
1.3 Coffee leaf with a few rust lesions, El Salvador 6
1.4 Branch of rust-infected coffee tree,
showing dieback, Costa Rica 7
2.1 Coffee branch and berries 19
2.2 Life cycle of the rust fungus 21
3.1 Planters and laborers walking through
a coffee estate, Ceylon 37
3.2 The collapse of coffee in Ceylon 60
4.1 Spraying sulfur in a coffee estate, Dutch East Indies 77
4.2 Liberian coffee 83
5.1 Contract workers in a robusta farm, Java, 1912 100
5.2 The robusta boom in Java 101
8.1 “I got rusted!” 142
8.2 Structure of a technified farm 161
8.3 Practice good pruning 161
8.4 Manage shade 162