Report: Fifty Pickers for the Red Cherries — Epoche A2
Report: Pickers for the Main Harvest For: the growers' committee of the vereda La Palmera, near Salento, Quindío Date: 12 September 1. The situation The main harvest begins in October. Coffee here cannot be picked by machine. First, the farms stand on steep hillsides where no machine can drive. Second, the cherries do not ripen together: on one branch there are red cherries, green cherries and new flowers on the same day. A machine would take them all. A picker takes only the red ones. 2. What this means in numbers Because the green cherries stay on the tree and turn red later, every tree must be picked again about every two weeks. The harvest is therefore five or six passes over the same rows, from October to December. Last year the six farms of this vereda needed forty pickers in the peak weeks; this year the flowering was heavier, and fifty will be needed. Pay is by the kilo of red cherries, weighed at the farm store each evening. A fast picker earns about double what a beginner earns at the same scales. 3. Requests Agree one kilo price for the whole vereda before October, so pickers do not move from farm to farm mid-week. Prepare beds and meals for the pickers who follow the harvest from other regions. The committee is asked to answer before 20 September.