Puerto Rico coffee growers not picky

BY RAY QUINTANILLA
Chicago Tribune

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - In an effort to stem severe crop losses and jump-start its coffee industry, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has turned to welfare recipients and prison inmates to harvest this year's coffee beans.

The program is part of an initiative to restore Puerto Rico's struggling coffee industry to its grandeur before neglect, bad weather and labor shortages of the early 19th Century caused the island's brews to fall out of favor across Europe, including at the Vatican.

"There's a serious shortage of coffee pickers and we have to act quickly," said Jose Fabre, secretary of Puerto Rico's Agriculture Department, which launched the initiative as part of coffee industry measures supported by Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila.

"We are trying to get this industry on a sound footing," Fabre said. "We need laborers willing to work in some difficult terrain to earn money."

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