The president of the Farmers Association, Hector Cordero, said Thursday that the next workers to come to Puerto Rico to work in agriculture will be from Honduras.
“Honduras contacted us at the Association and they are very interested. Yesterday I had a meeting with the Secretary of the Interior (Noelia García) and as all this has been private meetings that farmers are doing, he asked us to l ‘Association will help the Department of Economic Development, the Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture to make some basic guidelines for this process. We are already contacting our part in Washington, the American Farmers Bureau to help us. in the sketch to definitely institute-until the Puerto Rican wakes up, ”Be said in a radio interview (NotiUno).
According to Cordero, between 500 and 600 laborers are needed to address the lack of interest of Puerto Ricans in agriculture.
The farmer mentioned that workers from the Dominican Republic and Mexico have already arrived on the island.
He further argued that most farmers pay more than the minimum wage to prevent right-wing flight.
“In the dairy sector my employees are almost $ 10 an hour, because they are right-wing employees and most of all they are difficult to recruit. And it’s strong, because when the price of milk falls, you have to comply with your employees.
Here banana and vegetable employees are paying you about $ 8 and $ 9 an hour, because you are a skilled and responsible employee.
Be mentioned that of the 13,000 farmers in Puerto Rico, 8,000 remain.