Nicaragua's Coffee Crisis
Falling Coffee Prices Devastate Local Workers

 Listen to Gerry Hadden's Report

Sept. 9, 2001 -- The prices of coffee beans continue to plummet worldwide. In countries like Nicaragua, where hundreds of thousands of laborers work as coffee pickers, the crisis is reaching desperate levels, reports NPR's Gerry Hadden.

Homeless Nicaraguan laborers and their families along the highway near El Tuma-La Dalia, who have been evicted from coffee farms. Photo: Gerry Hadden, NPR

Coffee is selling on the world market for $50 a bushel, down from $140 just two years ago. In Nicaragua, production costs are nearly twice the current selling price, forcing many farmers to expel their landless workers. "Things are really bad these days," says 25-year-old Diora Raderia, a Nicaraguan coffee picker. "We need food but there's no work."

John Talbot, a sociology professor at Colby College, says one of the reasons for the price fall is an increase in production from a number of exporters. "You have Vietnam, which about 10 years ago was a really marginal coffee producer," he says. "And now, they are the second largest behind Brazil." He adds that several other countries have also increased their production because they are under pressure from the World Bank to repay their debts.

In Nicaragua, the government has not been able to offer much assistance, apart from some 800 jobs as urban street-sweepers. And with the presidential election scheduled for November, the issue is quickly becoming politicized, with candidates blaming each other for the crisis.

But Talbot says there is no quick solution to the problem. Because coffee is a tree crop that takes years to begin yielding beans, it's not easy to abandon. "What we'll be seeing is people just losing their land," he says. "And that's how production is gonna decrease over next few years."


Other Resources

Learn more about the Latin American coffee production from World Resources Institute.