Nestled in a mountain in central Honduras, the coffee producer “El Encanto” only has half of its pickers left to carry out one of the five harvests of the year in February.

The massive migration to the United States deprives him of the usual workforce.

This observation of lack of arms is repeated throughout Central America, where the population, especially young people, flees poverty towards the American Eldorado, leading to crop losses and a drop in income for coffee growers.

In Siguatepeque, 90 km north of Tegucigalpa, Selvin Marquez, owner of “El Encanto”, has only 20 pickers out of the 40 essential to harvest the only red berries on the five hectares of the farm.

“Many of those who picked with us left for the United States or elsewhere for lack of other opportunities here,” laments the 34-year-old.

Among the pickers present, a plastic container tied around the waist to deposit the grains, José Samuel Hernandez, 34, works alongside his wife, Esly Mejia, 24, his sister-in-law Gleny, 20, and the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Alexa, who hugs a dusty teddy bear when she’s not already helping by plucking berries from low branches.

In eight hours of work, often under a blazing sun although sheltered from the imposing foliage of the coffee trees, the family harvested 182 kilos, paid 10 cents per kilo.

“A basic monthly food basket exceeds 14,000 lempiras ($567)”, so the income from picking is “insufficient” for the family, breathes José Samuel Hernandez to AFP.

Fortunately, the coffee harvest is only an additional income for him, a security guard where he earns 429 dollars a month. But on each of his days off, he joins his family to help with the work on the farm.

The Honduran authorities estimate that a thousand people, out of the 9.5 million inhabitants, leave the country every day in the direction of the United States to tear themselves away from poverty and the dangers of criminal groups.

The migration of Hondurans “doubly affects” production and harvesting, says Oscar Marquez, 36, Selvin’s brother. “Those who leave stop harvesting our coffee and those who stay too”, because they live off remittances from the expatriate diaspora, he explains.

In Honduras, the world’s seventh largest producer of green coffee with 276,000 tonnes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), some 100,000 producers generate one million jobs.

Coffee growing contributes 38% of agricultural GDP, according to the Honduran Coffee Institute. And in 2021-2022, Honduras exported $1.4 billion worth of coffee.

In Costa Rica’s Central Valley, in the town of Birri, 37 km north of San José, grower “Hersaca Tres Marias” suffers the same fate: a drastic reduction in Nicaraguan seasonal pickers – most of its workforce – work – gone to the United States.

Since the protests of 2018, harshly repressed by the government of Daniel Ortega, the exodus has increased. Although Managua does not publish any figures, more than 164,000 Nicaraguans were intercepted by US authorities entering irregularly in 2022, three times more than the previous year.

Of the 94,000 hectares of coffee plantations in Costa Rica, which employ some 25,000 pickers, the workforce is mainly Nicaraguan but also Panamanian and Costa Rican, according to Bilbia Gonzalez, deputy executive director of the Costa Rican Coffee Institute.

She says “Nicaraguan migrant pickers (…) are extremely important” to Costa Rica, which exported $337.8 million worth of coffee in the 2021-2022 season.

“Nicaraguan workers I have very few this year, they left for the United States”, explains Geovanny Montero, director of “Hersaca Tres Marias”. “Last year I had 70 workers, this year I have 50”.

With the rains which caused the fruits to ripen prematurely and the lack of manpower, the director foresees a loss of 5% of the harvest which he cannot quantify while waiting to be able to compare with previous years.

“That’s a lot of money,” he laments, pointing to the ripe grains that have fallen to the ground and wasted for sale to the cooperatives.

02/23/2023 09:57:25 –         Siguatepeque (Honduras) (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP