This chapter, as the final chapter of this study intends to summarize the research findings, the implications of these findings, as well the present research limitations that lead to suggestions for further research in the area. The present study had three main research purposes related to the coffee industry in Nicaragua, all of them presented as research questions in the chapter one. The following section presents the results achieved for each purpose, established for the research.
The study aimed to understand the migration process of the coffee pickers in Nicaragua, specially the obstacle that they have to face, as well as what are the motivations behind those migration decisions.
The first purpose of the study was to investigate what are the reasons why the employees decide to move either from their home place to a coffee farm, or from farm to farm even in one coffee harvesting season which only has a duration of three or four months. These reasons are illustrated in the graph bellow.
Figure 5.1. Reasons why coffee pickers move
As seen the graph above, according to the percentage of employees that responded to the structured interview, the most picked reason by them is that they need to migrate in order to higher their income. Most of these reasons were also mentioned by experts and employers, concluding that the need to get more income is the principal migration motivation for these
employees, therefore coffee pickers would always aim to move to the farm where the payment is higher.
As previously stated in the study, seasonal migration is a difficult process for coffee pickers and their families, besides that this process conveys a lot of consequences in many areas of the country. According to the data collected, the difficulties are based on four basic stages, and these difficulties start to be presented since the beginning of the migration process, the first stage when then coffee pickers need to give up, and leave behind their life at their home place, the second stage is the moving, the transition to the next destination, where the difficulties are basically related to the transportation to get to different places (in the case of employees that move to different farms), the third stage is adapting to the new place, employees found difficulties getting use to the new environment, new physical conditions of the new location, the situation in that farm, climatic conditions and new-coworkers. The three sets of data also shows that the most difficult and uncomfortable aspect of migrating is the constant instability that coffee pickers and their families suffer, they don't have an own place to stay, no privacy, they are never sure when they will have to make the decision to move, and produces many problems among the familiar unity as well.
Finally the findings of the study concluded that the regulations established in the Nicaraguan employment code, are not being comply in its totality, for many reasons, first of all employers expressed some of these regulations are unrealistic and don't adjust to the reality of the country and their economic situation. The production of coffee is an unstable business, because it's controlled by the stock market and its price might vary during the coffee-harvesting season, which affects the economic situation of the coffee producers. Experts expressed concluded that more efforts should done from the employers side, but from the institutional side as well; the government control about the law compliance is very poor, and that is one of the main reasons why employers are not adjusting to the laws of the country.
Concluding with the fact that Law compliance issues also produces migration decisions among the coffee pickers. Many benefits or right that coffee temporary workers should receive is what causes dissatisfaction on the employees, being these push factors that make them take decisions about migrating to other farms where that have the factors that they are looking for in order to feel more satisfied.
Research Implications
The findings of this study on the migration process of the coffee pickers in the Northern Region if Nicaragua have implications in two important sectors of the country, the private sector and the public sector but also in in the employers, specifically coffee pickers.
Public Sector
The public sector refers specifically to governmental entities that are involved with the coffee industry in Nicaragua, being this Ministry of Labor of Nicaragua and in some extent the Ministry of Health of Nicaragua, because is the one that regulates the salubriousness conditions in every private entity, such as coffee farms, as well as the one in charged of the health attention of employees.
As mentioned previously, the employment labor code is very precise about the corresponding laws to the management of the employers in the agricultural sector. Every year the Ministry of labor, creates a new regulation previous to the coffee harvest season in order to ensure the protection of coffee pickers.
Laws regarding, the salary, food regulation, about the benefits for employers, the measurement of the lata of coffee and child labor are stated in the political constitution of Nicaragua. The reality is that the compliance of these laws is very poor, and one of the main reasons why this situation is given is because of the follow up of these laws. The control of the farm owners’ activities is very negligent, as the necessary supervision is not being executed by the correspondent entities.
The incompliance of these laws are being identify by other sectors of the social structure of the country such as experts on the field, students, non profit organizations and researchers, and the current situation has became of common knowledge for the society of the country. Therefore the Ministry of labor should put more efforts on the regulation of these laws and ensure that these are comply by farm owners in order to protect coffee pickers as an important workforce for the economy of the country.
In addition, there are some other measurements that the Ministry of labor should take in order to ensure a better life quality for these employers, for instance the practice of Child labor hasn’t been eradicated in our country even if that’s what the law mandates. Therefore different programs or projects should be created to benefit not only coffee pickers but also their families.
The importance given to this workforce would surely bring benefits to the life quality of citizens of Nicaragua, the agricultural sector and more important the country’s economy.
At last, the Ministry of labor should also create projects to benefit the employers, or coffee producers of the country, by creating more associations where these employers can expose their problematic. The actions of the government to negotiate with non profit organizations for international aid that could be helpful to organize coffee producers for their training on personnel management.
Private Sector
The private sector, are basically the coffee farms, which are the centers that employ coffee pickers. The management of these workforces should be a priority for farm owners.
According to the findings of the study farm owners are not complying with regulation mandates of the labor employment code and this is one of the main reasons why dealing with agricultural workers, especially seasonal coffee pickers is.
Farm owners need to pay the necessary attention to this workforce, because coffee pickers are the ones who make the coffee production at their farms possible. Starting to comply with the laws established might causes economic difficulties for them, as well extra efforts, but results will be seen in the response of the employees. Coffee pickers need to be satisfied in order to provide a better performance in the coffee plantations. The more motivated the employee feels, the less turnover rate would exist at their farms.
Employers should create some new strategies to deal with these workforce, changes at their farms that might seem difficult to execute such as, better accommodation, decent living conditions, variations in the alimentation, recreation activities, in order to create a stronger personnel relationship and retain coffee pickers at the farms.
Employees
The implications that the results of the present study have for the employees, are based on the implications it has for the public and private sector and how are they are going to benefited from the actions that the government entities might have towards the coffee production industry in Nicaragua. Employees will also be benefitted by the private sector implications, in the sense of how the employers deal with the management of migrant coffee pickers as they are and how
do they improve their management strategies, motivation methods and how the employees will be satisfied by these actions.
Through the results of the study employees might also have an opportunity to take actions towards their job satisfaction and the rights to be demand from the private and public sector.
Activism and the creation of employees’ association in order to negotiate with the different sectors and the necessity to express the issues of coffee pickers is crucial for the development of these workforce and their lifestyle.
As a conclusion, there should be shared efforts from both sectors in order to create better management strategies for this workforce and provide the necessary measurements in order to make guarantee that the coffee production in Nicaragua continue giving the satisfying results expected without affecting the different groups involved in this industry.
Research Limitations
As every research study, the limitations represent a gap on the findings of the research. In the present study the limitations are related to data collection process. During the data collection process many obstacles were faced in order to reach the sample.
Firstly, the sample of coffee pickers was only obtained from a population of three farms in the Northern Region of Nicaragua and the employees interviewed where the ones that attended to the workplace on the day that the interviews were conducted, as the nature of these workforce regarding job attendance is very unstable. Besides that, the interview conducted was structured because of the literacy levels of coffee pickers, which could have limited more data, which might have been provided by coffee pickers regarding their own life experiences. The fact that the interviews were conducted in their workplace might have represented another limitation in the data collection in the sense that some of the interviews might have not provided authentic responses, but as there are no organizations or any other place to access the workforce, the interviews had to be conducted at the coffee farms.
Secondly, the sample of employers was very difficult to reach, as the research intended to interview 10 employers, which was not possible, being able to interview only 6 employers, which most of them seemed to have very reduced availability and being apprehensive to some questions asked.
At last, the experts interviewed, are mainly professionals that have been involved in the coffee industry of Nicaragua, but all of them belongs to the private sector. There was no access to public representatives in order obtained more information about their perspective of this situation.
Suggestions for Further Study
For future research on this topic, it would be recommended to focus in the other part of sample, which are the employers. Future studies should be conducted on how coffee pickers’
migratory movements affect coffee producers in Nicaragua; in addition studies on the management of this important workforce should also be conducted, specially examining the challenges that coffee farm owners have dealing with coffee pickers and their families.
Also future researches in the practice of child labor in our country should be conducted, as child labor is not only present in the agriculture industry but in other industries of the economy of Nicaragua in order to get real statistics about how child labor has been eradicated in our country and how this practice is still creating many consequences in the social development in our country.
More studies are necessary in order to examine the governmental effectiveness regarding the compliance of the laws in the country, in this case the ones related to the coffee industry. The position of the government regarding the phenomenon seasonal migration of coffee pickers and impact that it has for the country is also of relevant importance.
Finally, studies on migratory movements of Nicaraguans are necessary. Coffee pickers are a workforce that migrate everyday during the coffee harvest, even this represents a difficult process for them as expressed in the results of the study, but as circular migrant they keep receiving benefits from this process, therefore migration might also represent a positive phenomenon for these workers. Internal migrations and it's reasons in other industries of the country, as well as transnational migration of agricultural workers, as the present research this was a topic that was mentioned as well by the interviewees, that mentioned that in Nicaragua the agricultural workforce is even more reduce because they are migration specially to neighbors’
countries, where there are also agricultural work to be performed and remunerated in a higher scale.
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APPENDIX A: INTERVIEWS ENGLISH/SPANISH VERSION
Interview for the Employers
1. How many employees approximately come to your farm during the coffee-picking season?
Are these recurrent coffee-pickers that come to your farm every season?
2. How many of these employees are, permanent employees in your farm?
3. How many of these employees, come from another town to work here and stay at the farm?
4. According to your experience, why do you think employees are constantly moving from one farm to another, even during the same coffee-picking season?
5. Do you think this moving process represents a difficult task for the employees?
6. What are the main difficulties that these laborers and their families face when moving from one farm to another?
7. Do the employees; bring some other help, such as children or any other family members?
Is it allowed for them to bring children to the farms?
Is it allowed for them to bring children to the farms?