Plan to keep workers in Mexico proves costly to coffee farmers

TESSIE BORDEN
The Arizona Republic Mexico City Bureau

JACK KURTZ/The Arizona Republic

EL AZOTAL, Mexico - In the two years since 14 migrants died in the desert near Yuma, friends and relatives in these poor mountain settlements formed a coffee growers' cooperative in their honor, hoping to earn a decent living so they wouldn't have to risk their lives.
The idea was to get more money for their product and help end the hemorrhage of migrant workers to the United States from Veracruz state. But they say a transnational import-export company that promised better-than-market prices for their crop instead bilked them of almost $50,000, more than half their money.

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