La Medida
How much do coffee pickers get paid in Nicaragua? After a hard day of picking coffee, coffee workers meet at a central location on the farm and begin la medida. I know what you’re probably asking, how much do coffee pickers make? La medida is when daily earnings are quantified for coffee pickers, by counting the amount of coffee cherries that can fit inside an 18L bucket. In Nicaragua they call this bucket a lata. On average, coffee producers pay their pickers 35 cordobas per lata, but many producers pay as much as 65-70 cordobas per lata for specialty coffee and that’s with meals included. A worker will pick roughly 6 latas, earning up to $12USD a day for specialty coffee, doubling the amount earned for conventional coffee. After la medida, coffee cherries are bagged and trucked down to the wet mill to continue along the value chain.