Cuba moves to stir coffee sector

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba - The government hopes to revive the country's once-thriving coffee industry by offering attractive wages in harvest season and replanting old plantations with low yields.

For each 2-kilogram can of picked coffee cherries, pickers earn 161 Cuban pesos ($6) for the arabica variety and $4 for the robusta, both of which are cultivated in Cuba's mountainous regions.

"During the harvest, every worker earns an average monthly salary of $226, which contributes to increasing quality and efficiency, and spurs personnel to make a bigger effort to earn more," said Victor Zaldivar, manager of the Coffee and Cocoa Processing Center in Tercer Frente, in eastern Santiago de Cuba province, home to the largest production area of coffee in the country.