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Permalink Reply by Joachim Oster on March 8, 2010 at 9:46pm

I am curious who picks coffee in Puerto Rico, David. Are these locals or do the come from the Dominican Republic? Are they paid cash at the end of the day, have a patron you as a farmer deal with? What is the going rate for picking a pound of cherry?

Kona, Hawaii has mostly recent Hispanic immigrants from California, who fly here for the harvest season. The patrons live here permanently and organize their housing, flights, transportation from farm to farm. The picking price per pound is btw 45 and 55 cents, depending of the difficulty of the terrain, amount of cherries on the trees and so on. The patrons take about 5 cent per pound from the worker. The patron comes either at the end of the day or a few days after picking to get the payment for the crew and distributes it to the workers. Most of the times people use the same crews year after year. MAny families do their own picking, and sell the cherry at the end of the day. The ones who process to parchment need crews. Being able to offer temporary housing is a HUGE incentive for workers, because housing is very expensive here in Hawaii and simple quarters very hard to find!

I let the workers always do their own weighing of the coffee bags they picked, and at the end of the day getting a cold beer gets them happy as well. My dry deck has a race track painted on it and a few remote controlled toy cars- a great hit during lunch hour or when there's a heavy down pour. I also try to always remember their names and the correct spelling. There's also a boom box they can take with them into the fields to play their CDs. I think being fair, and little perks goes a long way.