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Puerto Rico Coffee Cooperatives and Economics

Puerto Rico is one of the countries with the highest cost of producing coffee in the world, according to the University of Puerto Rico's Agricultural Experiment Station. This article covers the island's coffee cooperatives, past and present; who sets the price of coffee; how much coffee the island grows and buys; why it costs so much to grow; and where growers can find help.

The Cooperativa de Cafeteros de Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico's first cooperative law, Ley 3 of 6 May 1920, covered consumer and production cooperatives. A second law, Ley 70 of 4 August 1925, was adapted from California's Standard Cooperative Marketing Act of 1919. The Cooperativa de Cafeteros de Puerto Rico was created under Ley 70. A 2020 history from the University of Puerto Rico calls it the first agricultural cooperative created under that law, at a time when growers received very low prices because the system for marketing their crops was weak. Tobacco growers had already begun to organise themselves into cooperatives in the 1910s and 1920s.

Sources give different founding dates. The 2020 history says some authors give 1925 and others 1928, and a 2016 history of Puerto Rican cooperatives gives 1925. The Europa Year Book of 1968 gives 1924. A 2006 history of Yauco says a local cooperative was founded in Yauco in 1924 and later joined the island-wide cooperative. Wikipedia gives 11 June 1924 as the founding date. A collector's page that reproduces the cooperative's letterhead gives that day as the date on which Ramón S. Torres Vélez registered the Café Rico trademark.

Ramiro L. Colón led the cooperative in the 1950s and 1960s. A 1955 issue of the Hispanic American Report, published at Stanford University, calls him the head of the Coffee Growers Cooperative, and the Europa Year Book of 1968 lists him as its general manager and secretary. In 1968 the cooperative had 4,080 members and offices in barrio Cuatro Calles, Ponce, and it published a monthly magazine, Revista del Café.

What the Cooperative Did

A 1928 article in the Revista de Agricultura de Puerto Rico describes the arrangement: a grower in debt delivered his harvest to the cooperative, which processed, graded and sold the coffee. A 2006 history of Yauco adds that the cooperative received the coffee, graded it, made loans, and handled transport and distribution. Joint Resolution No. 23 (Resolución Conjunta Núm. 23) of 25 April 1932 was passed to support the cooperative. In the 1930s and 1940s it was Puerto Rico's largest coffee exporter, selling mostly to Europe, according to a 2001 report in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal. The same report says the cooperative produced and sold the Café Rico brand, which at its peak was the island's leading brand, with more than half the market. By 1968 Puerto Rico had 40 agricultural cooperatives of all kinds, with about 45,000 members.

Coffee for the Holy See

Between the 1950s and the 1960s the Holy See bought about 15,000 quintales of Puerto Rican coffee a year, according to a 2021 article in Whetstone Magazine. A quintal is 100 pounds. The same article says the Vatican was the only government that bought Puerto Rican coffee directly, and that the coffee came from the Cooperativa de Cafeteros. A 2018 blog post quoting a research paper gives a different supplier: the firm Sobrino de Mayol Hnos. It says the Vatican bought the second grade in quality and price produced by Mayol, and cites export records for the 1955–56 and 1961–62 harvests. The two accounts disagree. A 2015 newspaper report describes the Museo del Café as the holder of the only receipts for sales of Puerto Rican coffee to Vatican City. These were purchases; no source located records a papal endorsement.

The 1982 Sale

In 1982 the cooperative's financial problems became so serious that it was sold to a group of shareholders, who renamed the company Café Rico after its best-selling brand. This account is from the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal in 2001, citing the San Juan newspaper Caribbean Business. In July 2008 the Café Rico brand was bought by another roasting company, according to La Perla del Sur, a Ponce newspaper. The Cooperativa de Cafeteros does not appear among the 76 agricultural cooperatives on the register of COSSEC, the public corporation that supervises cooperatives, in February 2020.

Coffee Cooperatives Today

At the end of the 2025–2026 fiscal year the Comisión de Desarrollo Cooperativo (CDCOOP) reported 499 active cooperatives of all kinds in Puerto Rico. Among the examples cited in the commission's report were agricultural cooperatives in Vieques, Patillas and Maricao, and the Cooperativa de Mujeres Caficultoras.

Cooperativa Agro-Comercial de Puerto Rico

The Cooperativa Agro-Comercial de Puerto Rico, in Ciales, makes the Café Cibales and El Cialeño brands. In 2024 NCBA CLUSA described it as Puerto Rico's oldest agricultural cooperative, with more than 100 coffee-producing members and a roastery. El Nuevo Día also calls it the oldest cooperative in the country. In March 2025 the Department of Economic Development and Commerce announced a $2 million project in which the cooperative is to rebuild a 30,000-square-foot facility and create 20 full-time jobs.

Cooperativa de Mujeres Caficultoras de Puerto Rico

The Cooperativa de Mujeres Caficultoras de Puerto Rico is described by its organisers and by El Nuevo Día as the first cooperative of women coffee growers in Puerto Rico. In March 2024 one of its organisers told Primera Hora that about 30 women were in the group, that it was working with the Institute of Cooperativism of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, and that it had raised almost $150,000 in donations and grants. In September 2024 its members came from coffee regions including Jayuya, Utuado, Maricao, Yauco and Adjuntas. El Nuevo Día reported in February 2026 that the cooperative had been registered in late 2025; the article gives November 2025 in one place and October 2025 in another. The same article reports that it had already trained about 30 women coffee growers in sales opportunities and help for their farms.

Café del Futuro

NCBA CLUSA says the $15 million Café del Futuro pilot project aims to help 2,000 coffee growers adopt climate-smart conservation practices, and that the project also encourages the cooperative business model to reduce costs and increase market access.

Who Sets the Price of Coffee

The price of coffee in Puerto Rico is regulated by DACO, the Department of Consumer Affairs. Its organic law, Ley 5 of 23 April 1973, lets it regulate, fix, control, freeze and revise prices and profit margins at every level of marketing. A clause added in 2008 requires the DACO Secretary to review the price of coffee at least once every five years. Any increase is to follow the recommendations of economic studies by a Coffee Evaluating Committee: economists from DACO, the Department of Agriculture and the University of Puerto Rico's College of Agricultural Sciences, plus one representative each of growers, processors and roasters, named by the Secretary of Agriculture.

Ley 78 of 27 July 2019 created the Oficina de Cafés de Puerto Rico within the Department of Agriculture. Through the Oficina, the Secretary of Agriculture must keep the costs of planting, growing and harvesting coffee up to date and, at least every two years, send DACO a report on farm-level production costs, with a recommendation on the guaranteed minimum price to growers where needed. The bill as filed in 2017 would have moved DACO's coffee-price powers to the Oficina. In the law as passed, the Oficina reports to DACO, and in August 2026 the Secretary of Agriculture said coffee prices are, by law, a matter for DACO. A Senate resolution of August 2022 records the DACO Secretary saying he had received none of those cost reports during his time in office. The preamble of Ley 78 describes the coffee zone as comprising 28 municipalities. The law gives the Oficina the power to adopt rules for certifying specialty, premium and 100 per cent Puerto Rican coffee. It also repealed Ley 232 of 22 December 2015, the law that had created a denomination of origin for Puerto Rican coffee. Platea PR reported in December 2025 that the Secretary of Agriculture wanted legislation filed in 2026 to create three denomination-of-origin marks, for crops, livestock and fisheries, and that such a mark would, for example, reduce confusion when buying Puerto Rican coffee.

The 2026 Coffee Price Order

On 2 October 2026 DACO issued Order No. 2026-007, which sets the price at which coffee is bought and the minimum prices paid for coffee to growers and processors. An amendment signed on 6 October 2026 states that those minimum prices took effect when the order was signed, on 2 October 2026. The amendment also replaces the coffee price order of 15 July 2015 and the provisional orders issued under the 2015 coffee price regulation, with effect from Friday, 13 November 2026. The new prices, as listed by El Nuevo Día on 2 October 2026, are:

  • Ripe coffee cherry: $22 per almud, up from $18, or $0.79 per pound, up from $0.64.
  • Green-ripe coffee cherry: $14.50 per almud, up from $12.
  • Robusta coffee cherry: $14.50 per almud, up from $12.
  • Parchment coffee, first grade, on a milled basis: $596 per quintal, up from $488.
  • Milled coffee, first grade: $610 per quintal, up from $500.
  • Imported semi-roasted Arabica sold to roasters by ADEA: $450 per quintal, up from $375.
  • Imported semi-roasted Robusta sold to roasters by ADEA: $307.20 per quintal, up from $256.

An almud is a Spanish measure of about 28 pounds, and a grower quoted by Primera Hora in August 2026 estimated that, in normal times, 22 almudes make one quintal of coffee. ADEA, the Administración para el Desarrollo de Empresas Agropecuarias, is the Department of Agriculture agency through which imported coffee is bought and sold to the island's roasters.

The order followed a review of production costs by DACO's Coffee Evaluating Committee, with input from the Department of Agriculture. According to the Department of Agriculture, the minimum reference price for growers had gone about 15 years without an update that reflected the rise in production costs. A DACO official said in August 2026 that the coffee price order had last been revised in 2023, and before that in 2015. Before the order, the Department of Agriculture had proposed raising the cherry price from $18 to $20 an almud, while the growers' organisation Productores de Café de Puerto Rico (Procafé) had asked for $23 on the basis of a study of production costs.

Under the provisional order of January 2023 and its extensions, coffee prices further along the distribution chain were left free of the traditional controls. Earlier, DACO set maximum retail prices: $1.04 a pound in 1970 and, after 16 years without a review, $3.12 a pound in 1986. In 2013 the regulated maximum was $4.45 for a pound of roasted or ground coffee, and it applied only to coffee packed in paper, not in aluminium or tin packaging.

How Much Coffee the Island Grows and Buys

An 1899 halftone plate printed with the caption "COFFEE-DRYING PLOT NEAR MAYAGUEZ.", from Margherita Arlina Hamm's account of Puerto Rico, showing coffee spread to dry on an open drying floor.

An 1899 halftone plate printed with the caption "COFFEE-DRYING PLOT NEAR MAYAGUEZ.", from Margherita Arlina Hamm's account of Puerto Rico, showing coffee spread to dry on an open drying floor. Photo: Margherita Arlina Hamm / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

In 1896 Puerto Rico exported 58,780,000 pounds of coffee worth $13,379,000, the largest amount of that decade, according to an 1898 bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture. Sugar exports that year were worth $3,604,000. Coffee and sugar, the island's leading products, made up fully 85 per cent of the value of its exports to foreign markets, according to the same bulletin.

The United States censuses of agriculture for Puerto Rico record the following:

  • 2007: 5,885 farms with coffee on 38,535 cuerdas, producing 180,594 hundredweight.
  • 2012: 4,671 farms on 33,213 cuerdas, producing 126,996 hundredweight.
  • 2018: 2,292 farms on 13,283 cuerdas, producing 21,490 hundredweight.
  • 2022: 2,983 farms on 18,961 cuerdas, producing 53,940 hundredweight.

The census treats the quintal and the hundredweight as the same unit. The 2018 table counted coffee harvested for sale, and the 2022 form dropped the words "and sold", so the two years are not counted in exactly the same way. In 2022 the average was about 6.4 cuerdas per farm. A cuerda is 0.9712 acre, or 0.3930 hectare.

The Department of Agriculture's figures are lower than the 2022 census figure. According to official Department figures reported by Primera Hora, Puerto Rico produced 32,111 quintales in the 2024–2025 fiscal year and imported 388,835 quintales, so local coffee was 7.63 per cent of the total. In August 2026 the Secretary of Agriculture gave annual production as about 34,000 quintales and consumption as about 300,000 quintales. These figures do not reconcile: 32,111 quintales produced plus 388,835 imported is 420,946 quintales, well above 300,000. According to Department of Agriculture data published by the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics in 2023, production fell from 280,000 quintales in 1990 to 28,943 quintales in 2020. Production of 32,000 to 34,000 quintales, about 3.2 to 3.4 million pounds, is between 5 and 6 per cent of the coffee exported in 1896. The Secretary said in August 2026 that enough coffee is planted on the island to harvest about 100,000 quintales, and in January 2026 that about half the coffee is lost on the trees for lack of pickers.

Imports

Federal law allows Puerto Rico's legislature to impose duties on coffee brought into the island, including foreign coffee that arrives from the United States. Anyone who roasts coffee, buys or processes it commercially, or imports it for sale must hold a licence from the Secretary of Agriculture under Ley 82 of 29 October 1992. The Department of Agriculture itself imports coffee to meet local demand. In 2019 the Secretary of Agriculture said the Department imports semi-roasted coffee, so that it does not arrive green or carrying disease, and supplies it to the island's roasters. Sources disagree on the import duty. In August 2026 the Secretary said imported coffee carries a duty of $200 a quintal, set in the 1960s, and that the Department does not pay it. A 2025 Senate bill states that Ley 77 of 1931 sets a duty of $2.50 a quintal on green coffee and $3.00 on roasted coffee. The Department reported operating losses on its coffee purchase-and-sale programme of about $8.3 million in the 2024–2025 fiscal year and $8.8 million in 2025–2026.

Why Coffee Costs So Much to Grow

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.

Picking accounts for 35 to 40 per cent of production costs in almost every coffee-producing country, according to the University of Puerto Rico's coffee production guide. The guide, revised in 2018, says pickers in Puerto Rico are paid by the almud, at $5.00 to $6.00 an almud. In 2021 a farm manager in Adjuntas told Es Noticia that pay there was about $8 an almud. Under its 2026–2027 incentives, the Department of Agriculture pays coffee pickers an incentive of $1.50 per almud of Arabica coffee.

Wages

Puerto Rico's own minimum wage, $10.50 an hour, does not apply to agricultural employees. Farm employers covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act must pay at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. A farm that used no more than 500 "man-days" of farm labour in any calendar quarter of the previous year is exempt, and so are some hand harvesters paid by the piece who commute daily from home and worked in agriculture for fewer than 13 weeks the year before. Ley 47 of 2021 ordered a special minimum-wage decree for farm workers by 1 July 2022, and the minimum-wage commission's 2025 report lists it as still pending.

Pickers

In 2021 the Department of Agriculture estimated that about 7,000 pickers were needed for the harvest. Few foreign workers have come to pick coffee: only 56 visas were approved for coffee farms in 2021, and of 1,392 temporary foreign farm workers who came to Puerto Rico over ten years, 455 picked coffee, according to the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo in January 2025. The same report said H-2A farm jobs in Puerto Rico paid $9.94 an hour, the lowest of any United States jurisdiction. In April 2026 the Secretary of Agriculture said 832 visas had been requested and more than 600 approved.

Wage support

The Department's agricultural wage subsidy reimburses 50 per cent of the hourly rate the employer pays, up to 50 per cent of the federal or state minimum wage, and since 2023 it has also covered workers on H-2A visas. Ley 6 of 2023 sets the subsidy at no less than $2.72 per certified hour worked from 1 July 2021, and the programme's regulation caps it at $250,000 per farmer per year. In December 2025, 6,721 farm workers and coffee pickers received a Christmas bonus of $165 to $235 each, $1,378,585.84 in all.

Help for Growers

The Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture building in Santurce, San Juan, an art-deco façade with "DEPARTAMENTO DE AGRICULTURA" legible above the door, photographed from the street behind railings.

The Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture building in Santurce, San Juan, photographed on 7 August 2020. Photo: The Eloquent Peasant / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Forming a cooperative

Under Ley 239 of 1 September 2004, the General Cooperative Societies Act, eight or more people domiciled in Puerto Rico can form a cooperative; a workers' cooperative needs five. They hold a founding assembly that approves the articles of incorporation and bylaws and elects a board of directors and a supervisory committee. The documents are filed with the Comisión de Desarrollo Cooperativo (CDCOOP), which sends the articles to the Secretary of State within 45 working days. The cooperative exists once the Department of State registers its articles and issues a certificate of registration. The formation period may not exceed one year from the date the documents are filed. Cooperatives, and their income and assets, are exempt from Puerto Rico taxes on income and property, and from excise and business-licence taxes.

CDCOOP, created by Ley 247 of 10 August 2008, advises groups that want to form a cooperative and provides technical help with economic and feasibility studies. Its office is at Avenida Américo Miranda 400, Edificio Original COSVI, San Juan, and its telephone number is (787) 763-2097; check before visiting. The Liga de Cooperativas de Puerto Rico, a private body founded by the cooperatives themselves in 1948, carries out feasibility studies and promotes new cooperatives. Its guide to forming a cooperative notes that the Institute of Cooperativism at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, runs a cooperative incubator that helps groups through each step.

Loans and grants

The Fondo de Inversión y Desarrollo Cooperativo (FIDECOOP), created by Ley 198 of 18 August 2002, finances cooperative businesses, including agricultural ones. Through EmprendeCoop, FIDECOOP offers microloans at 0 per cent interest to cooperatives legally constituted in Puerto Rico, according to its own brochure. In June 2026 USDA Rural Development awarded FIDECOOP $180,000, including $120,000 for a low-interest revolving loan fund for rural cooperatives recovering from disasters. The Banco Cooperativo de Puerto Rico offers cooperatives lines of credit and commercial loans. The United States Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency makes direct farm operating loans of up to $400,000 and microloans of up to $50,000. After a disaster designation it also offers emergency loans of up to $500,000, which must be applied for within eight months of the designation. In August 2026 a federal drought disaster declaration covered 26 of Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities, including Yauco and Lares. Puerto Rico Farm Credit, which says it has served Puerto Rico's farmers since 1922, makes borrowers co-owners of the lender when they accept a loan. The Banco de Desarrollo Económico para Puerto Rico lends directly to businesses in agriculture and other sectors from 4 per cent interest, subject to conditions, and administers guarantees on agricultural loans made by banks and cooperatives under Ley 117 of 17 August 2001.

Department of Agriculture programmes

For new coffee plantings, the Department's 2026–2027 incentives include a voucher for 1,000 seedlings per cuerda, up to 20 cuerdas per farmer per year, and purchase orders for fertiliser, lime and pesticides. The fertiliser order is worth $200 a cuerda and the pesticide order $100 a cuerda. The Department also pays part of the premium for crop insurance from the Corporación de Seguros Agrícolas, which offers coverage of 85 per cent (for coffee only), 75 per cent and 65 per cent. Deadlines change, so check with the Department before applying. Advice from the University of Puerto Rico's extension agents is described in UPR Mayagüez: Puerto Rico's Coffee Research Program, and help after hurricanes and drought in Hurricane Maria and the Coffee Industry (2017): Devastation and Survival.

Key Facts

  • Puerto Rico's first cooperative law was Ley 3 of 6 May 1920; the Cooperativa de Cafeteros de Puerto Rico was created under Ley 70 of 4 August 1925.
  • Sources give the cooperative's founding as 1924, 1925 or 1928.
  • In 1968 it had 4,080 members; in 1982 it was sold to shareholders and renamed Café Rico.
  • The Holy See bought about 15,000 quintales a year in the 1950s and 1960s; sources disagree on whether it came from the cooperative or from Sobrino de Mayol Hnos.
  • DACO regulates the price of coffee; the Oficina de Cafés, created by Ley 78-2019, reports farm costs to DACO.
  • DACO Order No. 2026-007: at least $22 per almud of ripe coffee cherry from 2 October 2026, up from $18.
  • 2022 Census of Agriculture: 2,983 farms on 18,961 cuerdas, producing 53,940 hundredweight.
  • Department of Agriculture, 2024–2025: 32,111 quintales produced and 388,835 imported.
  • One cuerda = 0.9712 acre.
  • Puerto Rico's own minimum wage does not cover farm workers; the federal minimum applies to farms covered by federal law.
  • Eight or more people can form a cooperative under Ley 239-2004.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Puerto Rico's coffee cooperative do? It received growers' coffee, processed, graded and sold it, made loans, and handled transport; in the 1930s and 1940s it was the island's largest coffee exporter.

When was it founded? Sources give 1924, 1925 and 1928. It was created under Ley 70 of 4 August 1925.

What happened to it? In 1982, with serious financial problems, it was sold to a group of shareholders, who renamed the company Café Rico.

Are there coffee cooperatives in Puerto Rico today? Yes. The Cooperativa Agro-Comercial de Puerto Rico in Ciales has more than 100 coffee-producing members and a roastery, and the Cooperativa de Mujeres Caficultoras de Puerto Rico was registered in late 2025.

Who sets the price of coffee in Puerto Rico? DACO, the Department of Consumer Affairs, following the studies of its Coffee Evaluating Committee; the Department of Agriculture reports farm costs to it.

What is a grower paid for coffee cherries? Under DACO Order No. 2026-007, at least $22 per almud of ripe cherry since 2 October 2026, up from $18.

Did the Pope endorse Puerto Rican coffee? No source located records an endorsement. What is reported is that the Holy See bought about 15,000 quintales a year in the 1950s and 1960s.

Is a cuerda the same as an acre? No. One cuerda is 0.9712 acre.

How can growers form a cooperative? Eight or more people can form one under Ley 239-2004, filing with the Comisión de Desarrollo Cooperativo (CDCOOP), telephone (787) 763-2097.

Sources

The Cooperativa de Cafeteros

  • Cooperativismo agrícola puertorriqueño: un centenario (1920–2020), Parés Ramos, Universidad de Puerto Rico, 2020 — the cooperative laws of 1920 and 1925; the cooperative's creation under Ley 70 and the years different authors give; the marketing problems of the time; the 1932 joint resolution; agricultural cooperatives in 1968; the COSSEC register of 2020.
  • Revista Idelcoop No. 220, J. E. Santana Félix, "Historia del cooperativismo puertorriqueño (1847–1946)", November 2016 — Ley 3 of 1920; the founding year 1925.
  • Historia de Yauco, Héctor Andrés Negroni, 2006 (Internet Archive digitised copy) — the Yauco cooperative of 1924 and the island cooperative's work.
  • Revista de Agricultura de Puerto Rico, vol. 21, no. 1, July 1928 (Internet Archive digitised copy) — the grower's delivery of the harvest to the cooperative, which processed, graded and sold it.
  • Hispanic American Report, vol. 8, no. 9, Stanford University, October 1955 (Internet Archive digitised copy) — Ramiro Colón as head of the cooperative.
  • The Europa Year Book 1968, vol. II, Europa Publications, 1968 (Internet Archive digitised copy) — the founding year given as 1924, the 4,080 members, the Ponce office, the general manager and the magazine.
  • Café Rico, Wikipedia (tertiary source) — the founding date of 11 June 1924 as Wikipedia gives it.
  • Café, Biografía de las Riquezas de Puerto Rico, a collector's page, c. 2013 — the cooperative's letterhead and the trademark registration of 11 June 1924.
  • "Protectionist Puerto Rico struggles to rebuild coffee sector", Larry Luxner, Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, October 2001 (archived copy, 29 December 2010) — the cooperative as top exporter in the 1930s and 1940s, the Café Rico brand's market share, and the 1982 sale.
  • "Inyecta $8 milllones a antigua torrefactora", La Perla del Sur, Ponce, 2009 (archived copy, 15 July 2011) — the sale of the Café Rico brand.
  • "The Coffee History of Puerto Rico", Israel Meléndez Ayala, Whetstone Magazine, 2021 (Internet Archive copy of 18 March 2023) — the Holy See's purchases of about 15,000 quintales a year from the cooperative; the quintal as 100 pounds.
  • Even in the Vatican, cosas pr (blog), 26 December 2018 — the account naming Sobrino de Mayol Hnos. and the export records it cites.
  • "Café con historia", Sigfredo Rivera Cruz, Índice / El Norte, 10 September 2015 (archived copy, 20 May 2022) — the Museo del Café's Vatican receipts.

Cooperatives today

Prices

Production and imports

Costs and labour

Help for growers

Claims this encyclopedia could not source

  • A single founding year for the Cooperativa de Cafeteros. Sources give 1924, 1925 and 1928; 11 June 1924 is also recorded as the date the Café Rico trademark was registered.
  • That Ramiro L. Colón was the cooperative's first administrator and joined it at 21. Only Wikipedia says so, and it gives 1932 as the year he became general manager.
  • That the cooperative bought the Café Rico brand in 1935. No reliable source located.
  • Which firm supplied the Holy See, and that it was based in Ponce. Whetstone Magazine names the cooperative; a 2018 blog citing export records names Sobrino de Mayol Hnos. No readable copy of Pumarada O'Neill's history of the coffee industry, cited elsewhere for these purchases, was located.
  • That the Holy See's purchases amounted to an endorsement. No source located.
  • That certification schemes now give Puerto Rican farms access to buyers. The Smithsonian's Bird Friendly directory listed no Puerto Rico producer on 22 October 2026, and no farm in Puerto Rico certified by the Rainforest Alliance was located.
  • A published cost of producing a quintal or a cuerda of coffee in Puerto Rico. None located; the cost study that Procafé reported was not found published.
  • Whether Order No. 2026-007 keeps coffee prices along the distribution chain free of control. Its published text is a scanned image without a text layer.
  • That coffee is second only to oil in international trade. The preamble of Ley 232-2015, since repealed, says so; no trade statistics supporting it were located.

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