A follow up editorial to the Maricao Coffee Festival of 2011
I ran across an article dated Feb. 24, 2011 in the Caribbean Business Weekly regarding the overall decline of the Coffee Industry in Puerto Rico. In the article they quote the Puerto Rico Coffee Buyers & Growers Association, stating that this year’s harvest lost $25 million, all due to a lack of hands needed for the harvest. 
Of the estimated 150,000 bushels grown, only 80,000 bushels were ultimately collected. The industry cites the inability to lodge migrant workers during harvest time and have requested assistance from the PR Agriculture Department to help cover housing for next year.
This is particularly depressing news for Labor as unemployment here exceeds 16% and has been double digit for the last several years. This would have been a ‘shot in the arm’ for the Economy on the West end of the island. The best harvest in recent years was 178,000 bushels in 2006 and has declined ever since. The cost of labor and operations is slowly driving farmers out of biz.
“Small business (less than 12 employees) is all but dead in PR”
This is in spite of the fact that Puerto Ricans consumed 270,000 bushels of imported coffee last year. I did the math.. less than a quarter of the coffee consumed here is locally grown.
Puerto Rico’s Dept. of Labor will not allow the use of foreign labor even though efforts to enlist inmates with sentence reduction and changes in unemployment rules have not solved the problem. All of this reflects badly on the Puerto Rican government’s ability to respond to a time critical issue and act decisively. This is NOT a slam on the governor, but on the system itself. For the Economy to lose $25 million over a known issue is simply not acceptable.
Why Puerto Rican Coffee is NOT marketed to the world as an upscale boutique product is lost on me. Then the local coffee haciendas could actually thrive.
So Sez the Scurvy Dog, Arrg!
Info for part of this story was taken from an Associated Press report by Danica Coto dated Feb. 17, 2011
Rafa says
Please do not talk about this. I am getting the worlds best coffee so cheap and do not want them to find out. ssshhh. Keep it to yourself.