Exporting Coffee

Costa Rica grows a ton of coffee and most of it is for exporting. There are some stats from coffesearch.org below the first number being 60 kg bags harvested and the second being 60 kg bags exported. So it is obvious that coffee is a big deal as far as exports go down here in ticoville.

Costa Rica
Atlantic coast: August-November. Pacific coast: September-December
2,467,000
2,196,000

As mentioned in a previous blog not a lot of the fruit goes into the finished product. According to the same source about 12-20 kg of export ready coffee will be produced from every 100 kg of coffee cherries harvested. That seems like a lot of work to sell coffee especially when lots of the work is done by hand. It really seems to me like coffee harvesters are getting a raw deal even with the Fair Trade Coffee emerging. But then I have also noticed that the standard of living is much lower here in Costa Rica. Not a lot of people are making a lot of money. In 2006 the average income was $12500 and with about 4.4 million legal citizens and with what I have seen, I am lead to believe that this average is very skewed. I think there are a few people making tons of money and lots of people making very little. For example our tour bus that we have for the whole trip costs hundreds of dollars a day (this is hear say but I believe it to be true) and Ronald the driver makes about $20 a day (also hear say that I believe to be true). I do not see how some of the people get by living here and coffee farmers would fall into that group. They do lots of work for little pay and it does not seem right to me.