Centam Coffee-Young Costa Rica coffee pickers tire of hard labor

By Brian Harris

SAN MIGUEL DE NARANJO, Costa Rica, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Every year Olga Salazar spends long days hand-picking coffee with her family in tow, but her seven children are tiring of the trade, a trend producers fear could mean future labor shortages.

Salazar's daughter Karla, 17, grew up picking coffee but hopes her children never have to follow her. She dreams of studying business administration and perhaps someday earning a better wage as a supermarket manager.

"I plan to study and give my children everything they need for a better life than mine," she said, filling her second 25-pound (11.4 kg) basket of the day.

"My classmates look at picking coffee as something ugly," she said. "They believe this work is for poor people."

Much of the high-quality coffee from Costa Rica's central valley will eventually make its way to some of the world's best-known brands, with a good deal of it going to Starbucks (SBUX.O), the top buyer of Costa Rican coffee.

Salazar says she enjoys the work despite the long hours and heavy lifting. Her children are less enamored.

One son this year stayed out of the field and took a full-time job with a construction company building high-end houses on the country's Pacific coast. Work on construction sites tends to be more stable and pay better.

Many in the country's coffee industry, which for 200 years has been the backbone of Costa Rica's relative prosperity, are alarmed that young people increasingly shun field work, preferring other jobs in an increasingly dynamic economy.

"When a country starts developing, the first thing to go is coffee," said Francisco Mena, the head of DeliCafe, a specialty coffee exporter that sells mainly to Starbucks.

LOW PAY, LONG HOURS

Pickers on the farm where Salazar works are paid by volume. On a good day the family can earn a combined income of around $44 for picking the equivalent of 155 pounds of green coffee.

Salazar rises at 4:30 every morning and by 6 a.m. the family is at work picking coffee, pausing only for a short lunch break of eggs, rice and beans.

The difficult conditions have led to labor shortages that worry many in the sector because Costa Rica's terrain does not lend itself to mechanized harvesting done on the farms in Brazil, the world's top producer.

The country relies on foreign migrants for half the harvesting, and the percentage has been rising steadily over the last decade despite a declining harvest volume.

The next wave of lost workers could be the children of current pickers who strive for a better life.

"With the coffee harvesting I pay my children's studies," said Salazar. "I want my children to finish high school and continue studying. My intention is that they go to college." (Editing by Jason Lange and Matthew Lewis)