Capulapa, Apr. 24 - Young coffee trees poke through the forest floor of farms in the humid hills around the Mexican town of Huatusco, largely paid for with money sent by illegal immigrants in the United States.
Like most Latin American coffee growing regions, Huatusco, in the tropical state of Veracruz, fell into disrepair when world coffee prices plummeted at the start of the decade.
As a result, thousands of farmers' sons packed their bags to look for work in the United States or in Mexican cities.
Now, farmers are reversing declining yields from plantations well past their optimal 15 year productive life, using money sent home by relatives north of the border to buy new trees, equipment and fertilizers.
"Do you think I could do all this just selling coffee?" asked Ignacio Ameca, inspecting some of the 8,000 shiny-leaved coffee seedlings he plans to sow under cedar trees and banana plants on his nine hectare (22-acre) farm this year.
Mexican coffee exports are up 29 percent in the first six months of the 2006/07 cycle as growers recovering from years of low prices have paid off debt and spent cash on their plots.
The millions of Mexicans working abroad, mostly in the United States, sent home a record $23 billion to relatives last year.
Ameca, 58, belongs to Huatusco's Small Coffee Growers' Union, a cooperative that advises its members on replanting and farm care.
The group sells the bulk of its coffee to Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Grown on wildlife-rich small plots, much is organic and fair-trade certified.
WELL-BUILT HOME
Ameca lives in a well-built house in the village of Capulapa on a ridge behind Huatusco.
Higher prices have helped, he said, but his home, and the pickup trucks parked in a tidy yard outside, are largely paid for with money sent home by three sons who work as carpenters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Thousands of farmers like him grow coffee beneath the canopy of cloud-forest shrouded hills that stretch for miles around Huatusco.
Many started to replace trees when prices picked up from lows of about 50 cents a pound a couple of years ago, making coffee seem like a worthwhile venture again. Coffee now sells at the New York Board of Trade for close to $1.10 a pound.
Even families without relatives working in the United States or in Mexican cities are renewing their farms in the region, said cooperative board member Rene Ixtla.
"There is a cascade effect. Farmers with remittances employ day laborers, so those workers have money to spend on their own farms," he said.
The cooperative produced 50,000 60-kg bags of coffee at its mill in the recently concluded 2006/07 harvest, up from about 42,000 bags the year before, helped by the new plantings and favorable weather on its members' higher altitude plots.
Ixtla said the harvest was so good the cooperative had to turn away coffee it would normally accept from nonmembers for processing at the mill.
It expects a similar output this year, with good flowering giving higher yields from farms in the warmer, lower altitudes and offsetting unseasonal cloudiness in the highlands, which has delayed flowering there.
In 2004, Mexican coffee production slipped below 4 million bags for the first time since 1992, according to figures from the International Coffee Organization, or ICO.
The ICO forecasts output of 4.5 million bags in the 2006/07 cycle. No official Mexican crop figures were available.