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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday September 20 2018, @11:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the caffeine-addicts-hope-so dept.

Puerto Rico bets on a coffee comeback

Thousands of rural families in Puerto Rico's rugged central mountains want to rebuild their traditional coffee economy after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. And one year on, they're betting on a dedicated group of millennials to get the job done, writes Tom Laffay. If they don't succeed, it could mark the end of coffee in Puerto Rico, forcing these last families to leave the island for good.

Puerto Rican coffee farmers lost an estimated 85% of their crops, or some 18 million coffee trees valued at $60m (£46m), and many have lost their homes in the wake of hurricanes Irma and María. [...] On average, 80% of coffee trees were destroyed by Hurricane María.

[...] ConPRometidos is an NGO run by millennials with a mission to create a stable, productive, and self-sufficient Puerto Rico, harnessing the energy, ideas and finances of the island's young diaspora. It began its work about six years ago in tapping into the know-how of young exiles in order to help address some of the problems they had left behind.

The hurricanes presented a new challenge but the plight of the coffee farmers caught the group's eye. They are soliciting a $3m grant from the Unidos por Puerto Rico Foundation to fund a five-year, island-wide project that aims to provide much needed relief to the island's coffee sector. The island can produce 240,000 quintales (100lb) of coffee but is only hitting 40,000, says the organisation's 30-year-old co-founder Isabel Rullán, which means it's importing coffee unnecessarily. Increasing production could bring about $65m dollars to the poor mountain regions, she says.

Related: Second-Largest Blackout in World History Hits Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican Death Toll From Hurricane Maria May be Many Times Higher Than Official Estimate
Puerto Rican Officials Raise Hurricane Maria Death Toll to 2,975 Following GWU Report


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @08:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @08:00PM (#737699)

    Seriously, the plants don't need much light. They die in full sunlight. It's the same with cocoa bean plants. They naturally grow at the bottom of a forest.

    Any "sort of open structure that reduces (wind?) damage but lets in most of the sunlight" will kill the plants. A normal house with windows is almost perfect for coffee beans, lacking only the high humidity... and soil too I guess, unless your floor is beyond dirty.