The town of Bukoba has seen better days. Located on the shore of Lake Victoria in the northwestern corner of Tanzania, Bukoba has suffered from years of civil war in neighboring Uganda and Rwanda and from decades of neglect by the distant government in Dar es Salaam. Following German rule from 1889 to 1916 and a British mandate to 1961, this small town was exceptionally prosperous at independence, as were the Haya farmers in the surrounding countryside. Bukoba was the largest coffee-producing region in the country, and investments in trade and education seemed to auger well for the future. Fate has been unkind to Bukoba since 1961. Its coffee economy now supports a tedious status quo of just getting by, rather than a dream of sustained development. Farming is carried out on a small scale by many peasant families, and few have the resources to supply modest inputs that could make a difference to coffee output, such as pumps, fertilizers, and pesticides. This type of small-scale, undercapitalized, market-oriented agriculture is one of the principal legacies of colonialism in rural Africa.

This chapter emphasizes the ability of Haya to make their voices heard and influence the way that coffee was integrated into their society. For all the tensions in the relationship between colonial state and peasants, there was an underlying consensus.