Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

But the most common real wage ranges between 21 to 23 Quetzals, equivalent to
US$2.7 to 3.0.
Mexican coffee growers
Farmers and areas: there are estimated to be 282,000 coffee farmers in Mexico and
the total area planted in this crop is around 750,000 ha; so the national average would
be 2.6 ha of coffee per farmer. This figure is similar to that found in other countries
such as Colombia or Honduras. Table 34 describes the coffee areas in Mexico as well
as the number of coffee producers (Consejo Mexicano del Café, 2000).
Table 34. Coffee areas and farmers in Mexico.
If we take the cumulative percentage of farmers and coffee areas we can calculate the
Gini coefficient (Tascon, 1980). This coefficient quantifies the degree of land concentration,
which in this case has a value of 0.43, which is lower than many other coffee
countries. This value must be due at least in part to land reforms programmes carried
out in this country.
Socio-economic description of Soconusco’s coffee farmers: as a part of the present
project, Jimenez (1999) carried out a study called “Small-scale coffee growers’ knowledge
and activities related to control of the coffee berry borer in Chiapas, Mexico”,
which involved a basic socio-economic description of the coffee farmers. Jiménez
found that the average age of the Soconusco’s coffee farmers was about 52 years old
(range 18 to 85 years old). Table 35 presents percentages of farmers according to age
categories.
Table 35. Age groups of Mexican coffee farmers in the Soconusco
region.
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