Hurricane Maria destroyed 85% of coffee farm harvests when it ravaged the island in September 2017, says Puerto Rico’s secretary of agriculture. Right before the storm, farmers were expecting the best harvest in 10 years, he says. (1/7)
Carmen Alamo, a professor of agriculture economics at the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus, said the help that farmers are currently receiving is"historic" — these public and private resources to rebuild and refuel the industry have not been there before to this degree.
Coffee was Puerto Rico’s chief export in the late 19th century, writes author Jorge Duany in “Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know.” In 1896, about 77 percent of Puerto Rico’s exports was coffee. Exporting became expensive when the island was included in the U.S. tariff system, and by 1930, it represented less than 1 percent of the island's exports.March 21, 2018Before Hurricane Maria struck, Puerto Rico was producing 150 quintals of coffee a year , Ortega said.
Jeannette disagrees. She said farmers need 18 million trees to replace what they had before Hurricane Maria and she says they have plenty of capacity. Farmers want to plant more trees to recover faster and increase their production, she said. Iris Jeannette is a third-generation Puerto Rican farmer whose coffee crop was destroyed in Hurricane Maria in 2017. She has planted new trees and is hopeful for the industry.One coffee tree takes three years to grow. So far, the government has distributed 500,000 trees to farmers throughout the island, Ortega said. The other 1.5 million trees will be distributed this month and next, he said.
Four days after Hurricane Maria struck, Jennette walked through her farm, assessing the damage. Now, she has planted new trees and is hopeful for the industry’s future.This story was completed as part of a collaboration with the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
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