The use of Child Labor to Harvest Guatemala Coffee
Numerous articles have covered the claimed use of Child Labor to Harvest Guatemala Coffee. Journalists sipping their Starbucks in New York needing to fill a few lines of copy writing falsehoods about Guatemala coffee farms Labor practices.
Guatemala annual coffee harvest is about to begin. Yes, there will be children in the coffee fields. Not to harvest coffee, to be with their parents.
100,000 small Guatemala coffee farms scrape out a living on three to five acres farms. Families, their children have grown up with coffee, and yes, they spend time with their parents in the coffee fields. The media never attach’s a Family Farm in Wisconsin with a 10 year old milking cows.
To survive and feed their families small growers take their families and travel distances across Guatemala to harvest coffee on large farms. Out of every cup of coffee, we drink in America those that pick Guatemala coffee beans earn less than three cents of that $3.95 Latte you enjoy at Starbucks.
Farms large and small paid nothing for the coffee they labor to produce with pride following generations of family history and knowledge. Last year’s harvest for larger growers earned $1.58 per pound of milled and patio dried green beans. In most cases having to wait up to a year to paid on their contracts.
A single shot of espresso uses approximately 7 to 8 grams of coffee; there are approximately 4,000 coffee beans in a pound of coffee. Out of a pound of coffee 57 expresso shots at $3.95, or $220.00 in gross sales from a single, pound of Guatemala Coffee. The farm earns $0.028 of that $3.95 expresso about the same as those that pick coffee.
Harvest time on large farms provides security and safety for the nomadic families that harvest coffee. Farms provide housing, food, medical care; pay the Guatemala minimum wage and bonuses for quality pickers. Provide security. A picker must be 16 years of age to work. Parents take their children to fields, like being home on their own farm.
Fact there is no use of Child Labor to Harvest Guatemala Coffee. Children in rural communities in Guatemala walk to school, without any concern by their parents of an active shooter situation. For the media, human rights groups and NGO’s to claim child labor is absorb. This is about culture and a way to survive.
There is a change coming with this economic imbalance of monopolies controlling and manipulating coffee prices to Guatemala producers. Guatemala producers are now selling direct to end users on a global scale. Today you can go on-line to numerous Guatemala Farm websites; purchase a 12-ounce package of fresh roaster beans, delivered in 4 days to the US for the same price you would pay your favorite roaster or coffee shop in the US.
