Yemen’s Traditional and Resilient Coffee Sector: Production Totals Steady from 1690 to Present

Abstract

Yemen’s total coffee production has remained relatively stable over more than four centuries—1690 to present— and averages about 10,000 metric tonnes per year, plus or minus about 5,000 metric tonnes. The uncertainty in total output—5,000 to 15,000 metric tonnes—is uncertainty not just in the historical record, but uncertainty that exists even today. In 2019, the latest year in which the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and International Coffee Organization (ICO) publish coffee output totals for Yemen, the estimates differ nearly fourfold. For the twentieth and twenty-first century I interrogate FAO and ICO coffee production data and find that production totals are deeply imprecise over the last one-hundred years but do seem within the range given. This contrasts with claims of Yemen’s declining production and faltering industry, often noted in international development reports and casual Yemen coffee news articles. For the historic record—eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—I refine definitions of pre-colonial coffee trading terms such as bahar, bale, farda and himl, and I apply these more precise definitions to historic records. I find production totals of about 10,000 metric tonnes in both centuries.