Coffee slump reaps bitter harvest for Central American migrants
JUNE 27, 2019 / 12:58 PM / 2 DAYS AGO
Gustavo Palencia, Sofia Menchu
5 MIN READ
LA COLONIA, Honduras/CAMOTAN, Guatemala (Reuters) - Toward the end of 2018, Honduran coffee farmer Mario Lopez paid a human smuggler, or coyote, to take him to the United States in a bid to escape the economic ruin engulfing him at home.
In mid-November, the coffee farmer and his 12-year-old daughter undertook a perilous 35-day journey up through Mexico after a collapse in international coffee prices destroyed the business that he had dedicated his life to, his wife told Reuters.
“My husband had to emigrate due to debt and because coffee cannot even provide for food here,” said Carmen Andino at the door of their home, a modest adobe building in La Colonia.
Shortly before Christmas, Lopez and his daughter entered the United States.
Since then, he has sent money to his wife and three children who stayed behind in La Colonia, a rural town in central Honduras dominated by cultivation of coffee, the country’s top agricultural export.
More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-centralamerica-immigration-coffee/coffee-slump-reaps-bitter-harvest-for-central-american-migrants-idUSKCN1TS2QB
