Bureaucratic hurdles in visa processing, high costs of importing labor, and lack of affordable housing for farm workers have hindered the Agriculture Department’s initiative to address the challenge of harvesting coffee in Puerto Rico’s mountainous regions. #NewsismyBusiness
Twelve years after the last sugar harvest took place in Puerto Rico, three government agencies are getting together to provide financial and technical support to help revive the sector that was once the backbone of the island’s economy.
Puerto Rico’s Gov. Alejandro García-Padilla announced Wednesday his administration’s plans to strengthen the island’s ailing coffee industry, vowing to help harvest an additional 15,000 acres of new crops and generating 6,000 new jobs over the next two years.
Looking to rescue Puerto Rico’s dwindling coffee industry and increase production of the aromatic brew, Agriculture Secretary Myrna Comas-Pagán signed Wednesday several contracts to prompt the availability of 16 million coffee trees in the near future.
During the month of October, El Meson Sandwiches is celebrating “Manos al Cafetal” (“A Hand to the Coffee Farms”), an initiative to raise awareness about the lack of workers available to harvest Puerto Rico’s coffee crops.
More than 1,000 students hit Puerto Rico’s coffee fields over the weekend to pick the ripe beans alongside a crew of government officials, the Agriculture Department confirmed.
The Agriculture Department launched Tuesday a $1 million institutional multimedia advertising campaign that aims to lift the consumption of local products from its current 20 percent level by inviting consumers to “buy local.”
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