Pathways to Sustainable Livelihoods: Examining Resource Access and Power in Robusta Coffee Supply Chains in Sumatra, Indonesia

This research examines how smallholder coffee farmers in Lampung, Indonesia, perceive livelihood vulnerabilities, access to assets, the mechanisms and structural processes that shape benefit flows, and the outcomes that result. Lampung, Indonesia’s largest Robusta-producing region, provides a critical context for exploring how access to resources and opportunities are distributed across a fragmented smallholder sector. Despite the importance of coffee to local livelihoods, few studies have centred on farmers’ own perspectives, with most focusing instead on policy, certification, or market frameworks. This research was therefore needed to address that gap and to capture how farmers themselves understand access, exclusion, and uneven benefit flows. Guided by an integrated analytical framework that combines the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) and the Theory of Access (ToA), the study connects livelihood assets, strategies, and outcomes with the formal and informal mechanisms that determine who can derive benefits from them. This merged framework enables assets to be viewed not only as resources but also as strategies and mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, linking farmers’ perceptions to wider structures of power and governance in the coffee sector. This research makes a unique contribution by exploring how farmers perceive and interpret their access to livelihood assets, the flow of benefits, and the actors and processes that shape them. It foregrounds farmers’ voices to reveal the informal mechanisms and everyday strategies through which they navigate constraints and inequalities within coffee supply chains. By showing how formal structures, particularly Organised Farmer Groups, interact with informal networks and trust-based exchanges, the study demonstrates how access and exclusion are negotiated in practice. Addressing issues requires reforms that recognise the informal mechanisms underpinning livelihoods while also investing in infrastructure, extending support beyond formal groups, and rebuilding trust in certification and market initiatives. Overall, the study demonstrates that understanding smallholder livelihoods requires looking beyond asset availability to the mechanisms, relationships, and perceptions that govern their use. By situating farmers’ perceptions within wider structures of power, the research offers both an analytical contribution and a set of lessons for promoting more equitable and sustainable coffee livelihoods.