Colombia is one of the world's leading producers of small red berries. Even if the year 2020 seems exceptional, the sector remains subject to the vagaries of the markets.

José Eliécer Sierra hopes that 2020 will be the “year of redemption”. The great harvest has begun. On his farm, clinging to the hills of Pueblo Rico (department of Antioquia, in the north-west of the country), the trees are laden with red berries [we speak of “cherries”] and shake as the 25 workers pass picking, who, with a keen eye and sure gesture, select the ripe grains. Like hundreds of farmers, José Eliécer is used to the difficulties of a culture that demands the fervor of a lover. In the twenty-five years he has been producing coffee, “there have been good, average and bad periods”, such as in 2019, when the bag [de 125 kilos] traded at 500,000 pesos [about 115 euros] . Today, the situation has improved. For the past six months, the price of coffee has remained above a million pesos and growers are very hopeful that the harvest at the end of the year, which accounts for 70% of production, will be the best in a long time.

Fragile, fickle, prices rise and fall with disconcerting ease. The problem is not new. Thus in 1888, the caudillo [of the Liberal Party] Rafael Uribe, who was at the head of the largest coffee company in the department of Cundinamarca [in the center of the country], said of the difficulties of coffee producers: “Those who grow coffee live in a more uncertain and risky climate than that of cattle feeders or potato growers. As they plant the coffee or reap the first harvest, the price picture can change drastically.”

The Brazilian gauge. More than one hundred and thirty years later, José Eliécer underlined in 2019 in a statement to the press that the gap between production costs and the selling price continued to widen: “Producing a bag of coffee costs 800,000 pesos [185 euros], and we sell below 700,000. That's a loss of about 100,000 pesos per bag. These prices could drive us out of business.”

Far from thinking of ruin, the farmers hope that this year, coffee will bring them about 9,000 billion pesos [more than 2 billion euros], a figure never before reached. According to Álvaro Jaramillo, general manager of the Antioquia Coffee Producers Committee, national production should well exceed 14 million bags, for the sixth consecutive year [at the end of October, production stood at 13.9 million bags, down 2% from the previous year]. To analyze the price of coffee, you have to look south, that is to say towards Brazil, the world's largest producer. The price of Colombian grain depends to a large extent on the vagaries of cultivation in the big neighbour. “They just announced a historic harvest of 65 million bags, which is not good for us,” says Jaramillo.

Fragile, fickle, prices rise and fall with disconcerting ease.

This year, the big harvest [from September to December] takes place under special circumstances: the pandemic has pushed up coffee prices; the dollar/peso exchange rate benefits exporters; and finally the world demand for coffee has increased by 2.2% per year over the last five years, according to the International Coffee Organization [which brings together the main producers]. In Colombia itself, consumption increased by 3%.

Good prices have filled coffee growers with optimism. Since mid-September, the farms have been buzzing with activity. Itinerant pickers, who criss-cross the country following the harvests, arrive at bus stations from Sucre, Bolívar, Nariño and other places where coffee is not harvested at this time [the picking is spread all over year depending on the climate of the regions in the country].

The most expert pickers, the “rockets”, are able to harvest 300 kilos in one day.

Depending on the farm, the producers pay them between 400 and 600 pesos per kilo. Each agricultural worker harvests an average of 120 kilos. The most expert, the so-called “rockets”, are capable of picking 300 kilos of coffee in a single day. The pickers sleep on the farms, which charge them between 8,000 and 16,000 pesos [between 1.8 and 3.6 euros] for the night and the three meals.

This year, due to Covid19, sinks and pipes have been installed for hand washing. Social distancing is required and a register must be completed at the entrance to each farm. If the harvest is better [in the Antioquia region], the realities are different from one region of Colombia to another.

Thus coffee cultivation is queen in the department of Antioquia: out of its 125 municipios [cantons], 95 produce the little red berry. Its production ranks second after that of Huila [in the south of the country] which, unlike other regions, has two harvests of the same volume per year.

In the Andean mountains of Caldas [south of Antioquia] in the municipality of Chinchiná, we find the crops of La Meseta, the largest coffee farm in Colombia. On its more than 800 hectares grow about 4 million coffee trees. At the height of the harvest, the company employed 1,500 picking workers.

Commitment. Far from the main coffee production area, Sven Erik Alarik cultivates his brand on a farm in Moniquirá, in the department of Boyacá [in the center of the country]. His Swedish father arrived in this village in the 1970s and settled permanently on this land. The products of Sven, winner of the award for best coffee in Boyacá in 2018, fall into the category of specialty [premium] coffees.

In the territory of Boyacá live small farmers who own an average of 1.3 hectares, like 96% of the coffee producers in the country. Every week, Sven receives calls from farmers who would like to work on his farm. “In the cities of the region, there are many unemployed people, ready to do any job in the countryside,” he explains. Sven has arranged with another grower to have the pickers employed on both farms, in order to have more work.

Despite the crises – price drops or diseases of the coffee tree – coffee remains a symbol of Colombia. Today, more than 540,000 families live from it on a total area of 853,000 hectares spread over 23 departments. José Eliécer continues to believe in coffee, as when he was a teenager and he used his schoolboy [uniform] shoes by participating in the harvest on other people's farms. When asked if, in difficult times, he thought of giving up, he replied: “Never. This work is a real commitment. Each coffee farm that closes means that many people will no longer be able to find work.”