Author(s)

Belandia da Costa Graciana^1*, I Gusti Agung Ayu Ambarawati², Dwi Putra Darmawan², I Wayan Budiasa²

¹Doctoral Program in Agricultural Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Udayana University, Denpasar, Indonesia.
²Faculty of Agriculture, Udayana University, Bali, Indonesia.

Coffee is one of the superior agricultural commodities in Timor Leste. It is cultivated by majority of smallholder farms. The Cooperativa Cafe Timor (CCT) is the biggest company partner with local coffee farmers in Timor Leste that facilitates farmers to apply good agricultural practices to yield better production and quality, in turn higher price. The CCT accounts for about 65 percent of Timor Leste’s coffee exports. This study aims to firstly describe the type of partnership between coffee farmers and the CCT in Timor Leste. Secondly, to examine the competitiveness of Timor Leste’s coffee in the world market with selected producing countries. Based on the rights and obligation between farmers and the CCT, it can be categorized as a Nucleus-estate and Smallholder (NES) partnership model developed by the CCT and the local coffee farmers. Results from Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) show that Timor Leste is not able to compete with Vietnam and Indonesia, but it competes with the Philippines and Thailand. Nonetheless, Timor Leste coffee is able to compete in the world market in terms of its quality with organic certification.

Nucleus-Estate Small Holder Partnership, RCA, Cooperativa Café Timor

da Costa Graciana, B. , Ambarawati, I. , Darmawan, D. and Budiasa, I. (2019) The Nucleus-Estate and Smallholder Partnership towards Export Competitiveness of Timor Leste Coffee. Modern Economy, 10, 1655-1670. doi: 10.4236/me.2019.107108.