Thursday, December 20, 2007
Costa Rican Coffee Pickers on the Move
“Centam Coffee – Young Costa Rica coffee pickers tire of hard labor,” reads the headline of this article by Brian Harris that appeared on the Reuters Web site Dec. 13, 2007.
As I read the article I realized a striking similarity to my own experience growing up in rural Wisconsin. I was raised, along with my brothers, on a small dairy farm. Each morning before school we would do chores, each night we would do chores and on the weekend we would do chores. Summers were filled with fun, but lots of work as well, picking rocks, baling hay, the things every farm kid knows.
It was tough but good. We learned life lessons many kids have no idea about. But as we grew up we were encouraged to pursue other interests – not to avoid the hard work on the farm – but to get away from a system that doesn’t adequately reward that type of work. And as other farms began to get bigger, and my brothers and I moved away, and more pressures came down on my parents, there came a time that we had to sell the farm.
The same thing is happening in Costa Rica. Families are realizing they don’t have to accept coffee-growing as their only option. The article seems to take the perspective of how this will affect coffee prices and how the supply will suffer. But there’s more to it than that.
As is often the case, people overlook the human factor. For generations people throughout the coffee-growing world have been reliant on coffee, and now as countries develop, they realize that coffee isn’t the only option.
The youth of Costa Rica aren’t tired of the trade, they are tired of seeing their parents struggle to live; they are tired of working sun-up to sundown for little payoff. If people are leaving coffee, it’s not because it’s “the work of the poor.”
Coffee Kids’ partner FHC has been providing scholarships for the children of coffee-farming families since 1996. A number of the students return after their studies to take roles in the cooperatives as agronomists or accountants, and others return to their communities as teachers.