ELSEVIER Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 165-178 ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Analysis Coffee in Mexico: international market, agricultural landscape and ecology David Nestel * Institute of Plant Protection, The Volcani Center, P.O. Box 6, Beit-Dagan 50250, Israel Received 10 December 1994; accepted 15 May 1995 Abstract The amount of energy and land devoted to the production of export crops in developing countries is associated with the economic behavior of the commodity in the international market. Stable increments in the international price of cash crops are expected to drive farmers and agricultural institutions in producing countries to increase production and yields of export crops. The increase in crop production, which can take place by incorporating new land into agricultural production and/or by introducing technological innovations to increase yield, may in turn affect the regional landscape and ecology. The present study examines the effects of the international coffee price during the 1970s and 1980s upon the regional landscape and coffee farm ecology of Mexico's coffee regions. The effects upon the landscape and ecology of coffee production in Mexico are discussed within the framework of the debate on trade and environment. Keywords: Coffee trade; Landscape; Coffee ecology; Mexico; Technological innovations I. Introduction The utilization of agricultural land and the land- scape patterns resulting from it depend primarily on the characteristics of the environment, on the vegeta- tion that is able to grow in that environment, and on the extent to which humans can profit, or subsist, from agriculture (Lepart and Debussche, 1992). In the past, decisions on land use were mainly affected by the micro market economic level of the farm and village (di Castri and Hansen, 1992). At present, however, the global interdependence of trade and markets has become the main driving force influenc- " Fax: (+ 972-3) 960-4180. ing the process of decision making at the local level (di Castri and Hansen, 1992). The effect that international markets have upon the landscape is illustrated by the history of coffee in Latin America. The increase in coffee demand in the U.S.A. at the end of last century drastically changed the landscape in Mexico by displacing the traditional production of cacao and tobacco with coffee agro- forestry systems (Early, 1982). During 1954, a sharp price peak of coffee in the international markets motivated the incorporation of new land, and the clearing of virgin jungle, in the Parana region of Brazil (Streeten and Elson, 1971). More recently, the steady increase in coffee prices during the 1970s resulted in the modernization of Latin America's coffee farms by transforming the highly diverse polyculture coffee agroecosystems into more ho- 0921-8009/95/$09.50 © 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0921-8009(95)00041-0