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Foreign labor fails to solve Puerto Rico’s coffee harvest challenges

By Víctor Rodríguez-Velázquez | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

The initiative to import agricultural workers, promoted by former Agriculture Secretary Ramón González-Beiró to tackle the labor shortage for coffee harvesting in the mountains, fell short for small and medium-sized coffee farms. The high costs of bringing in these workers, the lack of housing to accommodate them, and the cumbersome and bureaucratic US visa process were significant barriers, according to an investigation by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI).

Of the 72 farms that applied for H-2A visas between 2015 and 2024 — which allow foreign agricultural workers to come to Puerto Rico — only 27 (37.5%) were dedicated to coffee harvesting. These 27 farms represent just 0.9% of the 2,983 active coffee plantations, according to the latest Agricultural Census by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Although some of these farms are among the largest, like Hacienda La Balear in Lares, which spans 600 acres, most coffee farms that received foreign workers account for only 13% of the 18,961 acres dedicated to coffee cultivation in Puerto Rico, as the CPI confirmed after speaking with at least 21 of the 27 farms owners.

The H-2A visa program is based on the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the legal admission of temporary, non-immigrant workers for agricultural jobs. Although this temporary visa program originated in 1986, data is only available on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services website from 2015. Puerto Rico is a US territory whose immigration laws apply here.

It wasn’t until 2021 that there was a slight increase in the number of foreign workers arriving to work on local farms. That year, González Beiró estimated that 7,000 workers would be needed to harvest the coffee planted after Hurricane Maria in 2017. However, in 2021, only 56 visas were approved for foreigners to work on coffee farms in Puerto Rico. In 2022, González-Beiró stated that 10,000 foreign workers would be needed to address the general agricultural labor shortage, and a year later, he claimed that these workers had “been the salvation” of local agriculture. That year, only 467 visas were approved.

According to H-2A Program data, only 1,392 temporary workers from countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, or Mexico have arrived in Puerto Rico in the past decade. Of these, 455 (33%) were for coffee harvesting, followed by 331 (24%) for banana and plantain harvesting. The rest of the visas were for farms dedicated to growing different vegetables, fruits, and meat production.

“This program doesn’t solve much”
Francisco Arroyo owns 14 acres of coffee-planted land at his K&V Caribe farm in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico’s quintessential coffee town. In 2023, he hired four agricultural workers from Mexico. He said the endeavor cost him $60,000 to bring these workers, who stayed in Puerto Rico for eight months.

Adjuntas heads the list of municipalities with the most coffee plantations: 508 as of 2022, according to the Census.

The coffee grower emphasized the high investment, mainly because “it’s not a program designed for you to have permanent employees. It’s a program to solve the harvest problem,” he said.

Arroyo decided against bringing in foreign labor again, acknowledging that although the four Mexican workers “brought the farm up to date,” once the approved period ended, he was left without labor, and weeds took over the land again. “It’s an expense with no return on investment,” he noted.

“Bringing people from outside with a cultural shock, with little education… it takes time. Large farms need them and can absorb them differently, but I don’t think any other farm is doing well [with this program] because we don’t have volume [of production],” he said.

Francisco Arroyo, owner of the K & V Caribe farm in Adjuntas, decided not to hire foreign workers because of the high cost of bringing four people from Mexico to Puerto Rico in 2023 ($60,000) to pick coffee. (Credit: Jorge Ramírez-Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

The Domingo Santana Corp. farm owner in Las Marías, which also started the process to bring in five foreign farm workers in 2023, left it halfway through because of the bureaucracy and the program’s demands, agreed with him.

“It was too much trouble. The federal authorities wanted all the paperwork sent at once, and since the lawyer assisting me sent them one by one, and they got lost [the documents]. They told me I had to start the process from scratch, and I backed out,” said Domingo Santana-Pagán.

Although he didn’t complete the process, Santana-Pagán said he suffered economic losses. He invested around $5,000 in house repairs, including buying furniture, to accommodate foreign workers and paid $500 for process management.

“This program doesn’t solve much. They are good workers, but you also have to take them shopping and run errands. I’m 78 years old and not up for all that,” said the coffee grower, who has six Puerto Rican employees on his 122-acre farm. Last year, he lost his harvest due to the damage caused by Hurricane Ernesto, which hit Puerto Rico in August.

Another coffee grower reconsidering whether to continue with the program is Raúl Toledo of Hacienda La Citrus in Utuado, as the investment is “extremely costly.”

“It’s an alternative, but to say it’s an advantage, it’s not, because it’s expensive. I’m evaluating whether to bring foreign workers again this year. We started at $7.25 four years ago, and now we’re at $9.94 an hour,” he said about the wages he pays.

Small farms at a disadvantage
According to the Agricultural Census, around 18,961 acres in Puerto Rico are dedicated to coffee cultivation. Each farm’s size varies, so there is a need for workers to harvest the over 20 million trees planted.

Ten coffee growers interviewed by the CPI agreed that due to the disparity in land size, not all farms have production that allows them to afford to hire foreign workers to address the shortage of Puerto Rican labor.

In Puerto Rico, most of the coffee plantations are in the mountainous area, which makes the task of picking the beans complex. (Credit: Jorge-Ramírez Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

For Mildred Cortés, an expert in agricultural economics and a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, there are multiple causes for the lack of local labor for coffee, not just low pay.

“The cultivation of coffee is very complicated because it’s in the mountainous area. The slopes are very steep, and the work is very difficult. Young people no longer want to work in agriculture because the minimum income in agriculture is lower than in other sectors. There has been a large exodus of the population to the United States, we all know that,” explained Cortés.

Iris Jannette Rodríguez, president of Procafé, an organization dedicated to promoting the coffee industry in Puerto Rico, and owner of a coffee plantation in Adjuntas, said that since 2017, she lost most of her workforce due to the migration of Puerto Ricans caused by Hurricane Maria.

Meanwhile, José Luis Rivera-Tollinche, from the Doña Rafa farm in Guayanilla, lost the three Puerto Rican employees he had in 2021 because they retired on social security.

Although he tried to hire local labor, he says he couldn’t find enough workers.

“I only found one who worked five hours a day, three days. In six months, the farm became like the Amazon,” Rivera-Tollinche recounted. This situation allows him to plant only 10 of the 50 acres that make up his farm.

In 2024, the coffee grower decided to join the H-2A visa program, but the process became so bureaucratic that the two Guatemalan workers he hired arrived in Puerto Rico three months later than agreed.

“The process was bumpy; the problems with the U.S. Department of State, I don’t know why, they have so much bureaucracy. They were supposed to be here in July and arrived in October. This affects us because it was precisely when we needed them most to pick coffee and maintain the farm,” he said.

The move cost him $40,000 to bring Candido Ramírez and Luis Humberto Marroquís Santos, both 50 years old, from Guatemala. Although he acknowledges that this investment is costly, he will hire foreign workers again this year.

“There’s no other way,” he said.

“Right now, it’s an expense that generates a deficit, but there’s no local labor here. Puerto Ricans don’t want to work in agriculture. To solve the investment problem, I would have to produce between 100 to 115 quintals of coffee to recover $40,000 and have a minimal profit or at least break even,” he calculated.

Cortés said all these factors unleash a domino effect that starts with reduced labor and, by extension, fewer farms where coffee is grown.

“One thing leads to another: farms deteriorate, fall into disrepair, become overgrown with vines, and it’s very difficult to work. Workers resist working under those conditions because farms are often isolated,” she said.

The visa benefits few coffee growers
Rodríguez, from Procafé, believes that the H-2A visa program mainly benefits large producers. “There are several farms that have brought [foreign agricultural workers], and for them, the result has been very positive because the farms have made great strides, but at a very high cost. Large farms can do that,” said Rodríguez, who in 2024 assumed the presidency of the Puerto Rico Farm Bureau.

Iris Janette Rodríguez, president of the Puerto Rico Farm Bureau and of the ProCafé organization. (Credit: Jorge Ramírez-Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

Farms like Hacienda Tres Angeles in Adjuntas or Hacienda Los Eucaliptos in Lares have consistently benefited from this program and have brought in 78 and 50 foreign workers, respectively, in the past five years.

But these are extraordinary cases, as most coffee plantations in Puerto Rico are small. The largest percentage of agricultural farms of all types of production are 10 acres or less.

Puerto Rico’s hourly wage is the lowest
An H-2A visa worker must work full-time or at least 35 hours per week. In their job offer, the employer must declare that they will pay the costs of visa processing, round-trip airfare to Puerto Rico and the worker’s country of origin, accommodation, and three meals a day or provide a kitchen where the worker can prepare their own food.

Agricultural jobs in Puerto Rico under this visa pay $9.94 per hour, making Puerto Rico the U.S. jurisdiction where foreign agricultural workers are paid the lowest hourly wage. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, which ranks one notch above Puerto Rico, these workers receive $13.96 per hour. The highest ranked in the United States and its territories is Washington, D.C., where foreign agricultural workers earn $22.23 per hour.

Although the hourly wage may not be attractive to foreign workers compared to what they would receive in other U.S. jurisdictions, obtaining a U.S. visa to work in a Spanish-speaking place with a tropical climate can give Puerto Rico an advantage.

“These people who come from outside, as they are given certain conditions, such as housing, transportation, etc., they come to save money to send to their country,” said Cortés. “It’s not that these foreign workers are displacing those from here. It’s that interest in working on the farm has been lost here. An image has been presented that agriculture is for the left-behind, it’s for the poor, that you won’t get ahead. But there are many successful farmers here.”

Regardless of the lack of interest, coffee harvesting is arduous work. In the call launched by Finca Bermúdez in Adjuntas to hire foreign workers, it is stated that employees who choose to do so can work up to 12 hours, seven days a week, and that the work requires extensive physical activity, such as pushing, pulling, reaching, lifting, and carrying items weighing between five and 60 pounds.

“Workers must hand-pick ripe coffee one by one, with the basket around their waist with a minimum rate of 35 pounds per hour, seven hours per day. It’s normal. The worker may be asked but not required to work 12 hours per day and/or on Saturday or federal holidays depending on field conditions, weather, and crop maturity,” reads the offer shared on the U.S. Department of Labor’s website.

Little support from the Department of Agriculture to import workers
In 2023, the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture included H-2A visa temporary workers for the first time in the Agricultural Wage Subsidy Program to mitigate the costs incurred by farmers who hire them. The program reimburses 50% of the rate paid by the employer per certified and worked hour, not exceeding 50% of the federal or state minimum wage.

Although he promoted the hiring of foreign workers during his administration to alleviate the labor crisis in coffee harvesting, former Agriculture Secretary Ramón González-Beiró only approved the inclusion of these workers in payroll subsidies for coffee growers. (Credit: Jorge Ramírez-Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

Luis Curbelo from Finca La Perla in Mayagüez noted that the Department of Agriculture takes time to issue these reimbursements, so that cannot be a solution to offset the investment of bringing foreign workers.

“The Department of Agriculture gives a supplementary salary that pays you half, or a little more than what you spend every three months. If I put $10, they pay me half as a reimbursement, but it takes them about a month or two to pay those remittances,” said Curbelo.

“Bringing a foreign worker implies that you have to provide them with housing, mobility, transportation, in addition to paying them for eight hours, the local worker works six, and they earn an average of $9.40 to $10. Large farms can do it, but few medium-sized coffee growers can afford that luxury, and most of the remaining farms are medium-sized, which cannot bear that cost,” he added.

Ricardo Giuliani from Hacienda Café Salomón in Ponce appreciated that payroll reimbursement is now offered but urged the Department of Agriculture to consider providing incentives to help cover travel and visa expenses for these workers.

“For me, bringing six workers from Guatemala easily costs about $10,000, including return tickets to their country. That’s what the Department of Agriculture should really help us with,” mentioned Giuliani, who hopes to bring 10 Guatemalan workers in July this year.

For Curbelo, foreign workers prefer to go to the United States because they receive higher pay.

“I can pay a local worker up to $8 an hour, and up to a dollar more to a foreigner. But those who travel to harvest crops in the United States are paid up to $18. That kind of worker isn’t available for coffee farming here,” he lamented.

Cortés acknowledged that, due to all the requirements demanded by these visas and the low salary competitiveness proposed by Puerto Rico, small farms benefit from hiring local pickers.

“A small farm benefits more from local labor, and that our young people and women join. Women are generally faster, more focused, and have other expectations to advance more, but there aren’t many women to work in coffee either,” she said.

Foreigners “perform well” on large farms
José Luis Torres owns Hacienda Los Eucaliptos in Lares, which produces Café Oro and Café Boricua and packs Econo and Nestlé brand coffees, among others. On his 115 acres, he employs 35 people for coffee harvesting and production, 12 of whom are from Colombia. “I started with 14 [Colombians] and this year we have 12. But for next year, I estimate we will need 18 people. I’m bringing Colombians who come from coffee regions and who perform well as pickers because they are people with a lot of experience,” he said.

José Luis Torres, owner of Hacienda los Eucaliptos in Lares, hopes to increase the number of foreign workers by bringing 18 people from Colombia to pick coffee on his 115 acres of land. (Credit: Jorge Ramírez-Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

Torres is one of the few agribusinesses in Puerto Rico dedicated to the entire coffee production chain. In addition to harvesting the bean, he is also a benefactor, meaning he is dedicated to cleaning and separating the pulp and seed, and a roaster, as his company roasts, packs, and distributes the final product to various businesses.

For four years, he has employed workers from Colombia to supplement the scarce local labor, but he acknowledges that due to his level of production, he has an advantage over smaller farms that cannot afford that solution.

Unlike other coffee growers, Torres does not see the H-2A program as complicated or bureaucratic. He has worked on it with attorney Javier Rivera-Aquino, who was the Secretary of Agriculture during New Progressive Party Gov. Luis Fortuño’s tenure between 2009 and 2013.

“Yes, he [Rivera-Aquino] helped me, and many fellow farmers. Like Javier, there are other lawyers who do it. Maybe in our case, since we are busier, we seek a contract to avoid having to do the process directly,” said Torres.

José Daniel Morales, senior manager of Agricultural Affairs at Puerto Rico Coffee Roasters, agreed that to get the most out of the H-2A visa program, you must have expert immigration personnel and contacts in embassies to mitigate bureaucracy.

“There is an opportunity to manage the coffee plantation. Now, you have to see it as a business. We can’t keep seeing it as a small farm. Agriculture is a business,” Morales said.

Puerto Rico Coffee Roasters has brought 54 Colombian agricultural workers in the past three years to work on the 200 acres they cultivate. Morales said that the performance of Puerto Rican workers is lower when compared to workers from other countries. “You see the drastic difference. It’s not the same to see the local employee who only put in five hours on the farm, but the foreigner does come to work. It’s sad to see that the local workforce stops working over anything,” he said.

“It’s a mutual benefit”
The H-2A visa program seeks to compensate for the lack of agricultural labor and prevent crop losses in the United States and its territories. For workers from Latin American countries, the economic compensation is attractive.

Vladimir Tilano, 50, is from Pereira, Colombia. He has worked for four consecutive years through the H-2A program at Hacienda Los Eucaliptos in Lares.

Vladimir Tilano has been working for Hacienda Los Eucaliptos for four consecutive years under the H-2A visa for foreign agricultural workers. (Credit: Jorge Ramírez-Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

He says the money he earns in Puerto Rico is the main benefit of being away from his country for 10 months.

“With the money we earn here, our family can live comfortably in Colombia, where it’s known that money is short. I personally help my siblings or other people who might need it,” said Tilano, married and father of three: Hamilton, 35, Sebastián, 25, and Katerine, 11.

The salary also motivated Diomides Trujillo, 44, from the mountainous region of Huila, Colombia, to join the program for the first time in 2024. He said he is the first in his family to access a visa to enter U.S. territory and coming to Puerto Rico gave him the opportunity to fly on a plane for the first time. Upon arriving in Aguadilla, he saw the ocean.

“The financial aspect is very favorable because the currency exchange here to Colombia benefits us. Today, I think [the exchange] is about $4,300 for one dollar, and that solves economic problems there,” he said.

The favorable exchange rate difference allows him to obtain the basic food basket for his family in Colombia.

“Agriculture is a development engine for a country, and then, to say: ‘Look, this coffee is picked by Colombian hands, and they are helping the country’s economy,’ is also important,” Tilano emphasized.

Both Colombians were surprised that in Puerto Rico, there is a shortage of people dedicated to planting and crops, especially since it is an island with good land.

“In Colombia, there is an abundance of labor, and let’s say that here [in Puerto Rico], which is a coffee-growing place and coffee is a driving force, people don’t want agriculture, they don’t like it. I don’t know why,” noted Tilano.

Vladimir Tilano (right) and Diomides Trujillo (left), Colombian farm workers, said that economic benefit is the main motivation for coming to work in Puerto Rico’s coffee harvest for 10 months. (Credit: Jorge Ramírez-Portela | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo).

Trujillo, for his part, noted the challenge of the emigration of young Puerto Ricans to the United States.

“I once asked the boss: ‘What about that farm over there or over there?’ Lost, abandoned farms. Then [he] tells me that there has been no agricultural rebirth. Young people are looking for everything outside and working in companies. That starts to create a deficit in the workforce. We have to find a way to attract young people and have them look at the countryside. Not everyone should leave because if everyone leaves, the hiring will end… then they won’t even bring us because there won’t be anyone to bring us,” he said.

Seeking to “socialize” the costs of bringing foreign labor
In separate interviews, the Farm Bureau president and Cortés agreed that a possible solution to fairly benefit from the H-2A visa program is to unionize several coffee farms to “socialize” the costs of bringing agricultural workers from other countries.

“What we want is to find some way to work so that, for example, me, along with two or three farmers, can bring three migrant workers and we can share the costs. But, how can we do it? Because there are requirements from the Department of Labor that compel the person who requests the worker to be the only one who can use them on their farm,” Rodríguez said, adding that she will seek to mobilize such measures in consultations with the Puerto Rico Legislature and federal agencies.

This program requires only one employer to apply for the visa and assume the costs of temporarily hiring foreigners for agricultural work.

“Yes, only one person can do the process, but maybe we could socialize the costs and create a work schedule for them, to work for all those who contributed funds. But that requires a lot of discipline and selflessness,” said Cortés.

The challenges facing coffee production in Puerto Rico are not mentioned in the Government Program promoted by Gov. Jenniffer González during her last year’s electoral campaign. In the agriculture section, located under economic development, general aspects of incentives, land use, agricultural insurance, among other topics, are discussed, but the coffee industry is not included.

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This story was written by our staff based on a press release.
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