This essay analyzes the impact of the coffee berry borer (CBB), Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari), in Colombia. In the explanation, the general characteristics of the traditional and technified phases of coffee production in the municipality of Líbano, Tolima, are identified. The article answers the following questions: What policies and phytosanitary practices were implemented during the expansion of the pest during the 1990s? What was the social, cultural, and productive impact of the CBB? The results indicate that coffee farmers did not respond by adopting new techniques but instead learned to co-exist with the plague. They also show a reduction in the amount of coffee produced as well as farmers abandoning coffee production. The most widely adopted practices were cultural control (Re-Re) and chemical control. The abandonment of coffee farming was not due just to the CBB outbreak in the 1990s, however; it was also due to the social and economic impact of institutional policies, the low profitability of the technified coffee production, and the levels of indebtedness among coffee farmers. This study, which employs an historical-anthropological approach, is based both on fieldwork undertaken in the region as well as bibliographic sources.