Conflict and Coffee in Burundi 143its implications for conflict is now widely acknowledged. With Burundi's
2001 population estimated at 6.53 million people and growing at an estimat-
ed 3% annually, the country's population doubles every 20 years.Iz7 The pop-
ulation density stood at an average of between 260-300 people per square
kilometres as of 1997 and is on the rise, one of the highest in Africa. An aver-
age peasant family in Burundi possesses less than one hectare of land.lB
The total arable land as a percentage of the country's total land area is
44%, with the area under permanent crops taking up 9% of that. The large
number of people living off the soil and the relative underdevelopment of the
tertiary and service sectors IZ9 consign an increasing number of the country's
population into competition for increasingly scarce land resources. The press-
ing environmental concerns in Burundi revolve around land rights of owner-
ship and access. Closely related are soil erosion and degradation, as well as
access to and exploitation of natural resources. This is the case particularly
because of the intensity of agricultural activity, what with its expansion into
marginal lands and into forest areas.
The challenge facing Burundi is that of mediating the competing claims of
food deficit and the desperate reliance on coffee to redeem the deficit. The
civil war has ensured that Burundi is transformed into a net imporrer of food.
Thus concerns over food security have gained an entry in a country that was
until the end of the 1980s food self-s~fficient.'~~
Intensive farming practices offer an intermediate solution that may not be
sustainable in the future because of coffee's notoriety for pollution, being the
second most chemically intensive crop after cotton. Although the input of fer-
tilizers in the coffee-growing areas in Burundi has been erratic in recent years
because of the civil war, the use of fertilizers over the years has bequeathed
the soil considerable residual chemical effect. This poses a potential for
reduced soil productivity because of the crop's long life cycle. The dilemma
is the pivotal place coffee (especially arabica which contributes 85-90% of
the foreign exchange derived from coffee) occupies in the economy and the
fact that segregating it from food crop cultivation is a near impossible task.
This is because in most smallholding plots where it is cultivated, it is along-
side food crops. Thus the setting up of separate coffee 'plantations' is not an
option.
Marketing of Coffee and Location of Secondary Industries
The marketing of coffee is a source of tension between the identity groups in
Burundi. Hutu farmers are aggrieved that the middlemen are ovenvhelming-
ly, if not exclusively, Tutsi who pay a low price for the coffee harvest.'31 The
traders engage in speculative activity, buying the harvest from farmers before
it is harvested and the price is fixed. In most cases farmers end up with little
revenue because the traders are privy to inside and forecast information of
prices in the international coffee market.132 The trend is however changing in