Research Project: Coffee Workers in Colombia (posted by Eliza)

INTRODUCTION 

I am doing my project on what it is like to work on a coffee farm in Colombia. You might have heard about Juan Valdez, the mascot of Colombian coffee. He represents the 542,000 families who produce 11.5 million bags of coffee every year (“Who we are”;  “How much coffee does Colombia export?”). Colombia ranks third in coffee production behind Brazil (no surprise there) and Vietnam. I thought that it is interesting that the average age of a Colombian coffee farmer is fifty-five, while the average age of a Colombian is thirty (“Who We Are”). 

Why aren’t young people working on coffee farms? I spent about three weeks trying to answer this question while I was in Filandia, Colombia.

METHODOLOGY & THESIS

To answer my question I went to several websites like geisha coffee, a blog written by Brett Marsh, and news sites like Al Jazeera and federaciondecafeteros.org. The next thing I did was go to Parke del Cafe and interview Juan 1, a worker there. I also went on a coffee tour of a farm called La Palma, and I interviewed the owner whose name is John. Later, I interviewed John’s son, Sergio, to have a younger perspective of things. I also interviewed Juan 2 who is 67 and still works on a coffee farm. The last person I interviewed was Yurani, who is also young and she is from Filandia. Finally, I went to work on a coffee farm for an hour and a half so I could understand how hard it was (Very hard).

                                   

I think that the answer is because young people want to move to the cities, young people do not like the low wages, and they do not like how labor intensive coffee farming is.

Section 1: Cities

The first reason why young adults do not want to become coffee farmers is because they want to move to the cities. I talked to John, an owner of a coffee farm. He said that young people do not want to work on coffee farms because they think they can get “easy money” in the cities (John). I also talked to a woman named Yurani who said universities are giving out scholarships to people who live in the rural areas (Yurani). Of course these young people would accept the scholarships because who wouldn’t? But the universities are in the cities, so young people have to move there. Also, Colombia has the world’s second highest number of internally displaced people, right after Syria (“The Last Refuge”). This means that people are moving from the rural areas to the cities. So, education and money aren’t the only things that make them move. They also move because of the violence that they face in the rural areas.

Section 2: Labor Intensive

I originally thought that the main reason why young adults do not want to work on a coffee farm is because of how labor intensive it is.

You have to carry around twenty-five to fifty kilograms whilst going up steep hills for twelve hours, all while the sun is blazing, And yet an 80 year old can still do it, according to John from a coffee tour of “La Palma” (John).

I read from an article on CoffeeTranslator.com that you have to wake up between four o'clock and four thirty, get on a Willy so you can be at the farm by five, eat breakfast there, chat with buddies and at five-thirty you start working. Then it's ten am, you are so worn out you eat another breakfast. After that short break it's back to work. Being a coffee farmer is so tiring you even have nap time at twelve-thirty! Working, lunch, working and finally five-thirty hometime (“How’s Life in a Coffee Farm”).

I met a guy named Juan at Parke del Cafe. He said his grandfather still works hard on a coffee farm. However, Juan and his dad didn't want to follow in his grandfather's footsteps.

When I worked on the coffee farm, there were lots of things that made it physically hard. For instance, there were always bugs crawling on me. There was this weed that had detachable thorns that stuck onto me and made my skin itch. It was very steep and if you fell all of your berries would go tumbling down the mountain. Even the things that you think would not hurt — like your wrist — did start to hurt from the constant motion of picking.

Section 3: Low Wages

Now I think that the main reason why young adults don't want to work on coffee farms is because of the low wages.

For instance, I worked on a coffee farm for 90 minutes. I picked every ripe bean I could find, and yet I would've only earned fifty cents. But of course an experienced coffee farmer would have obviously picked more. Still the average amount that they would have picked would have only given them fifty dollars a week, according to the owner of La Palma (John). In some places they get paid even less.

I watched a news clip from Al Jazeera that talked about how people are abandoning their coffee farms because they were getting less than one dollar per pound of coffee beans and less than one cent per cup (“Colombia’s coffee workers despair over low wage”). Sergio, the son of the farm owner, talked about how all of his friends, except for one, did not want to become farmers because of low wages. Sergio said that his friends did not care about the actual hardness of the physical labor (Sergio).

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, you can see why young adults would not want to work on a coffee farm — and neither would I. I learned to appreciate coffee much more now that I understand how hard it is and how little people get paid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“How much coffee does Colombia 

export?” March 12, 2024. 

Tendata.com.

“How’s life in a coffee farm.” 

September 24, 2021. 

Coffeetranslator.com.

John, owner of la Palma. 

Interviewed by author. July 

23, 2025.

Juan 1, worker at Parke del cafe. 

Interviewed by author. July 

21, 2025.

Juan 2, coffee farm worker. 

Interviewed by author. July 31, 

2025.

“The last refuge: urban 

displacement in Colombia.” 

2020. Internal Displacement 

Monitoring Centre.

Marsh, Brett. “A day with a 

Colombian coffee farmer.” 

April 6, 2022. 

Pulitzercenter.org.

Rampietti, Alessandro. 

“Colombians coffee farmers 

despair over low wage.” 

September 21, 2018. Al 

Jazeera.com.

Sergio, son of farm owner. 

Interviewed by author. July 31, 

2025.

“Who we are.” May 2025. 

National Federation of Coffee 

Growers of Colombia. 

Yurani, young adult from Filandia. 

Interviewed by author. July 

29, 2025.