The initiative to import agricultural workers, promoted by former Agriculture Secretary Ramón González Beiró to tackle the labor shortage for coffee harvesting in the mountains, fell short for small and medium-sized coffee farms. The high costs of bringing in these workers, the lack of housing to accommodate them, and the cumbersome and bureaucratic US visa process were significant barriers, according to an investigation by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI).
Of the 72 farms that applied for H-2A visas between 2015 and 2024 — which allow foreign agricultural workers to come to Puerto Rico — only 27 (37.5%) were dedicated to coffee harvesting. These 27 farms represent just 0.9% of the 2,983 active coffee plantations, according to the latest Agricultural Census by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Although some of these farms are among the largest, like Hacienda La Balear in Lares, which spans 600 acres, most coffee farms that received foreign workers account for only 13% of the 18,961 acres dedicated to coffee cultivation in Puerto Rico, as the CPI confirmed after speaking with at least 21 of the 27 farms owners.
The H-2A visa program is based on the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the legal admission of temporary, non-immigrant workers for agricultural jobs. Although this temporary visa program originated in 1986, data is only available on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services website from 2015. Puerto Rico is a US territory whose immigration laws apply here.
It wasn’t until 2021 that there was a slight increase in the number of foreign workers arriving to work on local farms. That year, González Beiró estimated that 7,000 workers would be needed to harvest the coffee planted after Hurricane Maria in 2017. However, in 2021, only 56 visas were approved for foreigners to work on coffee farms in Puerto Rico. In 2022, González Beiró stated that 10,000 foreign workers would be needed to address the general agricultural labor shortage, and a year later, he claimed that these workers had “been the salvation” of local agriculture. That year, only 467 visas were approved.