Historic harvests and sky-high prices – so why can’t Colombia’s coffee-growers hire pickers?

Though coffee is one of the world’s most important commodities, little of the profit trickles down to the farmers, while workers are abandoning the countryside in search of more lucrative jobs in the city

Mary Luz Pérez Arrubla and her brother, Rodrigo, are fourth-generation farmers cultivating coffee on steep Andean slopes near the town of Líbano, in the rich agricultural region of Tolima. Along with the rest of Colombia, the family has enjoyed a historic harvest amid surging global coffee prices, which hit record highs for the second year in a row in 2025.

Severe US tariffs imposed on Brazil and Vietnam, – the world’s two largest coffee producers – as well as poor harvests there, helped drive the surge. Both countries were hurt by the El Niño phenomenon, a cyclical weather pattern characterised by dry spells and aggravated by the climate crisis.

Continue reading…