Coffee bean growers in Colombia are facing higher labor cost and harvesting delays as pickers are leaving for better-paying construction jobs, according to Bloomberg.
The labor troubles are also leading to more increased pest pressure.
Producers of the Arabica beans brewed by companies like Starbucks are now paying workers twice as much compared to two years ago and harvest delays mean the coffee beans often are left on the tree longer and tend to fall to the ground.
When the coffee beans reach the ground, they become open to beetles that can bore into them.
Head of the Andes Coffee Cooperative, Juan David Rendon, told Bloomberg that “infrastructure in Colombia has been demanding a lot of manpower.”
The Cooperative represents coffee growers who farm the equivalent of 86,000 acres.
The labor situation is likely to get tougher as the country seeks to improve more roads through 2018. Colombia ranked 126th out of 140 economies for the quality of its roads on the World Economic Forum’s 2015-2016 global competitiveness index.
