The Coffee Trust partners with people in the Ixil region of Guatemala. (Courtesy of The Coffee Trust)
Coffee farm workers sometimes face difficult job conditions, low pay, unsafe labor practices — even coercion. These have been problems for centuries, but a few farm owners, roasters, social enterprises, and associations are developing solutions. By respecting human resources, new approaches might help ensure that the first link of the industry’s supply chain is not broken by a lack of willing hands.
The coffee supply chain is a vast, global network that includes processes like roasting, packaging, distribution, and retail, but it all begins at the farm. Growers hire labor for various durations ranging from full-time to part-time to seasonal. Producers rely on human hands to pick, package, and roast coffee before it begins its journey to consumers around the world. Yet hiring and managing workers is complicated.
Approximately 60% of the global coffee supply comes from smallholder coffee farms, defined as 5 hectares (12 acres) or smaller, according to a study by University of Vermont researchers published at coffeesmallholder.org. Farms both big and small are being squeezed by environmental and social pressures. Climate change is making it more difficult to farm. The viability of many farms, and the livelihoods of the people who work there, are at risk. Farm workers are vulnerable to exploitation, sometimes enduring unsafe labor practices, insufficient wages, even forced labor. Some regions have to cope with political instability and lack of infrastructure.
While these problems are difficult to perceive outside of farming areas, they can impact the entire coffee supply chain. Coffee suppliers and retailers that work with farms involved in labor abuses face legal and reputational risks. Tight linkages throughout the supply chain can transmit problems from one end to the other, affecting prices throughout the industry.
How are industry stakeholders addressing labor issues and helping the workers that power the coffee business?
Some small farms, like Kona Earth in Hawaii, work with an agent. “We rely on our farm consultant Arturo Ballar, who helps connect us with pickers. Last year, we worked the first part of the season with a team from Costa Rica and then finished up with a crew of local pickers,” said Joanie Wynn, owner of Kona Earth. The farm hires independent workers who have the freedom to choose where they work.
Kona Earth strives to offer fair wages. “In one of the few coffee regions located in the United States, I think Hawaii coffee farmers do a good job of ensuring that pickers are paid fairly,” Wynn said. “The going rate currently is $1 per pound. A picker often picks 150 to 200 pounds per day over 8 hours, which translates to a rate of between $18.75 and $25.00 per hour, well above the state’s minimum wage.”
In Colombia, coffee roaster Amor Perfecto has developed a partnership to address the labor shortage. “In coordination with our partners at Innovakit, we have developed a program based around organization, training, and incorporation of micro-businesses for migrant workers, now mostly from Venezuela,” said Luis Fernando Velez, founder of Amor Perfecto. “This project, called Biohexa, has had great success and helped solve two huge problems in Colombia: refugees and a shortage of farm workers.” Innovakit helps educate farmers and their families on how to produce higher-quality beans to earn higher prices.
As a roaster, Amor Perfecto pays prices for green beans that average 50% higher than prices reported by the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia (FNC). “This creates a bond that allows the farm to pay their workers more and upgrade facilities. Good labor practices start with treating coffee farmers with the dignity they deserve,” explained Velez.
The Amor Perfecto team works to maintain strong relationships with farms through regular site visits. “[We] make sure to visit the farms, not once every two to four years but every week, and we develop continuous interaction with the farmers to listen to what they want, how much pride they take in their work, and most important, how to develop positive partnerships,” he said.
A number of social enterprises work to support coffee workers. The Coffee Trust focuses its efforts on the Ixil region of Guatemala. The region is suffering from a worker shortage, which is driving up labor prices and dragging on production. The Coffee Trust works with coffee producers through its sister organization, Santa Fe Coffee Works (SFCW). “SFCW imports coffee from our producer partners and sells the coffee in the States under the brand name CocoMiel. CocoMiel shares half of its gross profits directly with the producers,” said Bill Fishbein, executive director of The Coffee Trust. “After paying its operating expenses out of its half of gross profits, CocoMiel contributes the balance to The Coffee Trust for social, environmental, and economic development projects in producer communities.”
The organization supports education initiatives in the Ixil region, participating in programs that help producers to diversify their income. For example, the Women’s Savings & Microcredit program helps women to launch small businesses or improve them.
Fishbein emphasizes partnering directly with people in coffee producing regions to improve outcomes. “Those problems have to be solved over time, through their own process of trial and error, and within the margins of their own priorities, their own values, and their own culture. Interfere with that process and you could do more harm than good,” he said.
Trade organizations, like the National Coffee Association (NCA), and collaborative initiatives, like the Sustainable Coffee Challenge (SCC), are helping to illuminate labor problems and promote solutions. Together, the NCA and the SCC have developed information resources on improving labor conditions.
Individual farms, regional projects, and major coffee industry associations all play different roles in in addressing labor issues. But it’s not enough to achieve progress at a single farm or region. Velez hopes to see a major shift throughout the entire value chain. “We strongly believe that is time to ‘decolonize’ coffee,” he said. “It is simple to understand that when a coffee growing country retains 50% plus of the value chain instead of 5%, then you can empower the farming communities.”