How a Struggling Coffee Market Pushes Guatemalans North

"Last year, I traveled to the Guatemalan highlands to visit the towns that were sending the most people per capita to the United States. I was curious about why Guatemalans were leaving their communities and what factors contributed to these decisions. In each town, I never found a single answer but, rather, various overlapping reasons that included a changing climate, low wages, few opportunities for employment, a desire for family reunification, distrust in political leaders and a lack of safety, among others. Yet there was one unexpected theme that I kept hearing about in the highlands: a changing coffee sector and low international coffee prices.

Guatemala’s coffee industry is one of the country’s main economic motors and also the largest rural employer. Yet, in recent years, the industry has struggled to stay afloat amid recurring coffee plagues, unpredictable rain patterns, a stronger Quetzal (the Guatemalan currency) and low global coffee prices. When prices are high, coffee growers can flourish and absorb higher production costs, but when prices drop, hundreds of thousands of families watch as their incomes dry up. These families and their communities often have few alternative economic opportunities, meaning that a struggling coffee sector can send local economies into a tailspin".