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Hurricane Maria and the Coffee Industry (2017): Devastation and Survival

Construction on a remote road near Utuado, Puerto Rico, on 11 October 2017.

Construction on a remote road near Utuado, Puerto Rico, on 11 October 2017, during federal operations in support of those affected by Hurricane María. Photo: Master Sgt. Joshua L. DeMotts, U.S. Air Force / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Hurricane María crossed Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017 and destroyed most of the island's coffee harvest and much of its coffee plantings. The harvest it destroyed had been expected to be a good one: the preamble of Ley 78 of 2019 says the 2017–2018 crop was expected to be the best in five years, at about 100,000 quintales, and World Coffee Research described it as on track to be the best in ten years. After the storm, Ley 78 says, the harvest was expected to reach barely 10,000 quintales. The sections below give each loss as its source measured it, the recovery programmes and what they reported, where production stood in 2026, and the help open to coffee farmers today.

The Storm and Its Track

Satellite image of Hurricane María over the Leeward Islands on 18 September 2017, two days before it reached Puerto Rico.

Hurricane María approaching the Leeward Islands, 18 September 2017, seen by NOAA's GOES-16 satellite. Photo: NOAA / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

According to the National Hurricane Center, María's centre crossed the south-east coast near Yabucoa at about 6:15 a.m. local time on 20 September 2017. Its maximum winds were near 135 knots, about 155 mph, just below Category 5 strength. The centre crossed the island diagonally, from south-east to north-west, and moved out over the Atlantic in the early afternoon. The Hurricane Center adds that winds of Category 5 strength were almost certainly felt at some high places on the island. It calls María the strongest hurricane to make landfall in Puerto Rico since San Felipe II, a Category 5 hurricane in 1928, and by far the most destructive to hit the island in modern times. The highest storm-total rainfall it lists for Puerto Rico is 37.90 inches, at a gauge in Caguas. In the western interior, the National Weather Service in San Juan reported strong winds and heavy rain in Maricao, rivers flooding downtown Jayuya, and bridges destroyed in Utuado, leaving sectors of the municipality isolated. In the eastern interior, landslides on main and secondary roads isolated many towns and communities. The storm brought down 80 per cent of the island's utility poles and all its transmission lines; by the end of January 2018, power had been restored to about 65 per cent of the island.

A landslide beneath a house in Utuado, Puerto Rico, after Hurricane María.

Landslide in Utuado, Puerto Rico, caused by Hurricane María, 21 September 2017. Photo: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

What the Coffee Sector Lost

Sources measured the losses in different ways, so each figure below is given with what it counts. Several of them combine the losses from Hurricane Irma, earlier in September 2017, with those from María.

  • Shrubs: in 2019 the US Forest Service, citing World Coffee Research, reported that 80 per cent of mature coffee-producing shrubs were lost.
  • Trees: Ley 78 puts the destroyed plantation at about 18 million trees, 80 per cent of those standing before the hurricanes.
  • Trees, a second estimate: World Coffee Research's programme page gave 18 to 20 million trees, 80 per cent of the island's total, as needing replanting, while its 2018 annual report described 20 million trees as 15 to 30 per cent of the island's trees.
  • Harvest: World Coffee Research said farmers could harvest only 20 per cent of the expected crop, and Ley 78 estimates the loss of production at no less than 85 per cent.
  • Harvest, a second estimate: NBC News reported in 2019 that Secretary of Agriculture Carlos Flores Ortega put the share of coffee farm harvests destroyed at 85 per cent.
  • Land: a University of Puerto Rico survey of 117 farmers in 14 municipalities found an average loss of 79 per cent of their coffee land.
  • Money: Ley 78 estimates losses at farm level at more than $100 million, made up of over $27 million in lost farm income and over $75 million in plantation losses.
  • Revenue: the Hispanic Federation estimated $85 million in lost annual revenue for coffee farmers.

What Happened on the Farms

Researchers led by Ivette Perfecto published a study of the damage to Puerto Rican coffee farms in Scientific Reports in October 2019. They had surveyed 36 coffee farms in 2013; after the hurricane 8 were abandoned, and the other 28 were surveyed again between February and July 2018. On ten of those farms, chosen because they could be reached, farmers estimated their 2018 harvest at an average of 0.86 quintales of green coffee per cuerda, against about 5 quintales per cuerda in 2010 to 2012. Average canopy cover on the surveyed farms fell from about 40 per cent to about 25 per cent. Vines spread over four of the ten farms, where the farmers did not have the money for labour or herbicide to control them. The authors found that farmers who were healthy enough to clear the weeds, had family or community support, or could pay for labour or herbicide made their farms resilient. They concluded that resilience depended partly on how a farm is managed and, perhaps more, on the farmer's social and economic position, while cautioning that this rests on only ten farms. A separate study by Mariño and colleagues, published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment in 2018, surveyed 8,431 coffee plants in 81 plots. It found 64 per cent of the plants healthy, 16 per cent stripped of leaves and 20 per cent fallen, against initial estimates of 90 per cent destruction. Plants on north- and south-facing slopes were more likely to be damaged, while distance from the storm's centre, altitude, rainfall and maximum wind speed showed no relationship with damage.

Shade and Hurricane Damage

A man standing among coffee bushes under a tall shade canopy in Indiera Baja, Puerto Rico.

Joint Chiefs' partners visit a third-generation coffee farmer to assist with agroforestry practices, Indiera Baja, Puerto Rico, 2023. Photo: Preston Keres, USDA Forest Service / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Shade trees are often expected to act as windbreaks, and the University of Puerto Rico's coffee guide says they protect coffee in places exposed to strong winds. The university's 1999 extension manual adds that strong winds which break the branches and trunks of shade trees cause serious damage to the coffee below. Studies after María point in different directions:

  • Perfecto and colleagues found no relationship between a farm's canopy cover and the damage it took, and only a small effect of management style, probably because the storm was so strong; on some farms, they saw shaded patches that were less damaged than patches in open sun.
  • Mayorga and colleagues, writing in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change in 2022, found that more shaded farms suffered less damage and that farms growing a variety of crops recovered faster; their vegetation measurements were made about five months after the storm.
  • A 2026 study by Russell, Ramos-Scharrón and Arima, using lidar and posted as a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed, linked higher damage to sun-grown plots, Ultisol soils and slopes facing the hurricane winds.

For growers weighing shade, the University of Puerto Rico's guide recommends permanent shade of no more than 30 per cent, and reports that intensively grown coffee in full sun yields 40 per cent more than intensively grown coffee under 30 per cent shade.

How Long New Coffee Takes to Bear

Rows of young coffee plants on a hillside at Hacienda Lealtad, Lares, Puerto Rico.

Newly planted coffee trees at Hacienda Lealtad, a former coffee plantation in Lares, Puerto Rico, 20 May 2019. Photo: The Eloquent Peasant / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The University of Puerto Rico's guide says coffee seedlings generally spend six to eight months in the nursery. The first commercial harvest generally comes in the third year after planting; in the second year there is a small crop that is not counted as commercial. For bushes broken by a hurricane, the Agricultural Experiment Station's coffee unit advises pruning them at 18 inches above the ground, after which they bear again in one and a half to two years. Where many bushes were uprooted, it advises removing them and planting again. A storm that destroys mature plants therefore costs a farm more than one harvest.

Earlier Hurricanes

The 1899 Census of Porto Rico says the hurricane of 8 August 1899 brought the final collapse of the coffee industry. It estimated the present and future loss to coffee alone at 25 million pesos. Coffee was then a leading export: an 1898 US Department of Agriculture report says coffee and sugar made up fully 85 per cent of the value of the island's exports, with 40,243,693 pounds of coffee shipped in 1895. The National Hurricane Center counts Georges, in 1998, as the island's previous costliest hurricane. The University of Puerto Rico's 2018 guide notes that the island's coffee production is generally lower than its consumption, so coffee must be imported. The 1899 storm is described in Hurricane San Ciriaco and the Coffee Collapse (1899).

The Recovery Programmes

The Department of Agriculture distributed 850,280 coffee seedlings to 454 farmers in 2017–2018, according to the director of its agricultural development agency, ADEA, speaking in 2019. By January 2020, 1,214,679 seedlings of the Limaní, Frontón and Marsellesa varieties had been delivered under its three-year coffee-farm recovery programme. The US Forest Service granted $200,000 to Cafiesencia, a private nonprofit educational organisation, to work with farmers in the coffee zone. Proyecto de la Montaña, run by Procafé and ConPRmetidos with funding from Unidos por Puerto Rico, provided 750,000 coffee seedlings, fertiliser and cash subsidies to more than 500 small coffee farmers, NBC News reported in 2019. The Hispanic Federation and the Miranda family launched the Puerto Rico Coffee Revitalization Initiative in Jayuya on 24 October 2018. Its founding partners included Nespresso, the Rockefeller Foundation, TechnoServe and World Coffee Research. The Hispanic Federation made the first investment of $1 million; Nespresso committed $1 million, the Rockefeller Foundation $500,000 and the Starbucks Foundation $470,000. TechnoServe carried out the work through its programme Revivamos Nuestro Café. On 14 September 2022, the Hispanic Federation reported that more than 2 million locally grown arabica seedlings had been distributed to 1,139 smallholder farmers, and that more than 1,000 farmers had received training and technical assistance. At the same event it announced that the island's coffee production "will" surpass pre-hurricane levels, at 10 per cent above 2016. A TechnoServe and Nespresso release the next day said the last harvest had reached 1,880 metric tons, over 90 per cent of pre-hurricane levels, and projected that the coming harvest would exceed them. Hurricane Fiona struck, and in January 2023 NotiCel reported that the final 2022 harvest was expected to be 28,000 to 33,000 quintales because of it. No later measurement has been found showing that the 2022 projection was met. As Revivamos Nuestro Café closed, TechnoServe reported that more than 1,200 coffee-farming households had been trained in regenerative agriculture since 2018, that 77 per cent of them reported higher yields, and that about 11 million coffee trees had been planted with the support of project partners. It said PROCAFÉ would continue to provide agronomy support to farmers. More on the initiative is in Coffee Revitalization: Hispanic Federation, Nespresso, and Puerto Rico's Recovery.

Production Since María

The Department of Agriculture's figures, in quintales, show how far production fell and how slowly it has come back:

  • Before María: an average of 69,763 quintales a year from 2013–14 to 2016–17, according to the University of Puerto Rico's 2018 guide; the 2015–16 crop, hit by a severe drought, was 49,785.
  • 2017–18: 20,853 quintales, 15,342 of arabica and 5,511 of robusta, in the Department's preliminary figures.
  • 2019: 12,127 quintales, the lowest point, according to the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics.
  • 2020: 28,943 quintales, according to the same source.
  • 2021–22: 40,000 quintales, as the Secretary of Agriculture described the harvest in July 2022.
  • Fiscal year 2023: about 28,500 quintales, El Nuevo Día reported in January 2024.
  • 2026: an annual average of about 34,000 quintales, according to Secretary of Agriculture Irving Rodríguez Torres.

For comparison, the Department's figure for 1990 is 280,000 quintales. The US Census of Agriculture warns that its figures may not be directly comparable with the Department's. It counted 2,983 coffee farms on 18,961 cuerdas in 2022, harvesting 53,940 hundredweight, against 2,292 farms on 13,283 cuerdas and 21,490 hundredweight in 2018. No source located shows production back above its level before the hurricane. The Secretary of Agriculture said in August 2026 that Puerto Rico consumes about 300,000 quintales of coffee. The Department now says more coffee is lost for lack of pickers than to drought. In 2021 it estimated that about 7,000 pickers were needed for the harvest. In August 2026 the Secretary said enough coffee is planted to pick about 100,000 quintales, while the annual average is 34,000. In April 2026 he said that with 2,000 agricultural work visas, production could double to 68,000 quintales within a year and a half; 832 visas had been requested and more than 600 approved.

The Library of Congress film below follows Puerto Rico's coffee farmers.

Watch: El Motor: Coffee and the Heart of Puerto Rico — Library of Congress

It was made by Russell Oliver, who received a 2022 Community Collections Grant from the American Folklife Center.

Help for Coffee Farmers Today

Programmes change; the details below are as published by October 2026, so confirm them with the agency before applying:

  • Department of Agriculture incentives, fiscal year 2026–2027: a voucher for 1,000 coffee seedlings per cuerda for new plantings, up to 20 cuerdas per farmer a year, with vouchers for fertiliser, lime and pesticides.
  • Replanting: a purchase order of $0.60 per seedling, with the farmer paying $0.40, up to 5,000 seedlings per farmer a year.
  • Pickers: an incentive of $1.50 per almud of arabica.
  • Insurance premiums: the Department pays 45 per cent of the premium for policies bought in April and 35 per cent for those bought in May, up to $5,000.
  • Deadline: the Department's drought page says applications for the 2026–2027 incentives close on 31 October 2026.
  • Crop insurance: the Corporación de Seguros Agrícolas insures coffee plantations six months old or more, with coverage options that include 85 per cent for coffee only; the latest sales period in the text found was 1 April to 31 May 2024.
  • Federal tree replanting: the US Farm Service Agency's Tree Assistance Program pays up to 65 per cent of the cost of replanting or rehabilitating trees and bushes lost to an eligible disaster; applications are due within 90 days of the disaster or of when the loss becomes apparent, and from program year 2026, losses above normal mortality qualify.
  • Emergency loans: a US drought disaster declaration of 26 August 2026 covers 26 of Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities, including Yauco and Lares; Farm Service Agency emergency loan applications are due within eight months of a disaster designation.
  • Advice: the University of Puerto Rico's Agricultural Extension Service gives farmers technical advice on production, marketing, financing, pesticide use, farm management and conservation through its agricultural agents.
  • Labour: Manos Pa'l Campo, a three-year programme launched in January 2026 by the Departments of Agriculture and Corrections, places participants on coffee farms in Lares, San Sebastián, Yauco and Utuado.

Key Facts

  • Landfall near Yabucoa on 20 September 2017, with maximum winds near 155 mph, just below Category 5.
  • Ley 78-2019: about 18 million coffee trees lost, 80 per cent of those standing, and a production loss of at least 85 per cent.
  • US Forest Service, citing World Coffee Research: 80 per cent of mature coffee shrubs lost.
  • Farm-level losses of more than $100 million, according to Ley 78.
  • New coffee gives its first commercial harvest in the third year after planting.
  • More than 2 million seedlings went to 1,139 farmers through the Hispanic Federation's initiative by September 2022.
  • Production in 2026: about 34,000 quintales a year, below the average before María.
  • Department of Agriculture incentive applications for 2026–2027 close on 31 October 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much of Puerto Rico's coffee did Hurricane María destroy? It depends on what is counted. The sources give about 80 per cent of mature shrubs or trees, and 80 to 85 per cent of the harvest or production.

Has production recovered? Not according to the Department of Agriculture's figures. The Secretary of Agriculture gave an average of about 34,000 quintales a year in 2026, against an average of 69,763 in the four harvests before the storm.

Did shade-grown farms suffer less? The studies disagree. One found no relationship between canopy cover and damage; another found that more shaded farms suffered less.

How long does replanted coffee take to produce? The first commercial harvest generally comes in the third year after planting.

What help can a coffee farmer get today? Department of Agriculture seedling and replanting vouchers, crop insurance and its premium subsidy, the federal Tree Assistance Program, emergency loans in declared disaster areas, and advice from university extension agents. Applications for the Department's 2026–2027 incentives close on 31 October 2026.

How does María compare with the 1899 hurricane? Coffee was one of the island's two leading exports, and the census describes the hurricane as bringing the industry's final collapse. By 2017 the island already produced less coffee than it consumed.

Sources

Claims this encyclopedia could not source

  • That production has returned to its level before María. A 2022 projection said it would; no later measurement confirming it was located.
  • That the coffee municipalities lay outside the hurricane's eye. No source located.
  • That some coffee communities were without electricity for more than a year. The sources located report restoration figures only up to January 2018.
  • That the sector rebuilt smaller after each earlier hurricane. No source located.
  • A count of 2,000 or more affected smallholder farmers. No source located; World Coffee Research described the island as having more than 4,000 coffee farmers.
  • That 10 to 15 million plants were lost. The sources located give 18 to 20 million trees.
  • That Puerto Rico's recovery model is studied worldwide as a template. No source located.
  • A farm-gate value for the coffee sector before María. No source located.
  • Measured yield gains from the 2022 seedling distribution. The only figure located is the share of trained households that reported higher yields.
  • Whether the Oficina de Cafés created by Ley 78-2019 has set up the emergency recovery programmes the law assigns it. No evidence located.
  • The 2026 sales dates for coffee crop insurance. Not found in the Corporación de Seguros Agrícolas text consulted.

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