Starbucks is better known for serving coffee than growing it, but one day your latte might be made with coffee developed by the Seattle-based company here in Costa Rica.
Central American coffee farmers have struggled with a ravenous fungus, drought and low prices for the last several years, but it looks like the 2014/2015 harvest might start to turn the corner, according to reports from governments across the isthmus. Higher potential production and buoying coffee prices might be the jolt the region needs to kick off its recovery.
Central American countries have spent years battling the crippling coffee fungus known as roya or leaf rust. Now the U.S. Agency for International Development has decided to get involved in fighting the epidemic.
Six months after President Laura Chinchilla’s government proposed ₡20 billion — roughly $40 million — in aid to Costa Rica’s struggling coffee farmers, the Comptroller General’s Office approved the project, according to a statement last Friday.
