QCOSTARICA – Costa Rica became an international benchmark due to the binational agreements that it managed to establish, both with Nicaragua and Panama, for the regulated entry of migrant labor for agricultural crops.
It is a process that allows the country to keep the agricultural, agro-industrial and agro-export processes active, relying on migrant labor for the harvesting process, in a model that allows the entry and exit of the worker, ensuring health, labor, and migration right during harvests.
For these reasons, the country received delegations from countries such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in order to learn about and replicate the protocols and regularization of temporary migrant workers in their countries.
According to Renato Alvarado, minister of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) this has been a great step that makes Costa Rica a benchmark at an international level, since it has been a pioneer in establishing regulatory standards for the entry of foreigners who collaborate with the harvesting of agricultural crops.
When the Covid-19 pandemic was declared last year, the MAG has been working in coordination with other government institutions and international organizations, to establish migration and health protocols for the temporary entry of migrant workers to harvest agricultural crops.
The work also involved representatives of the governments of Panama and Nicaragua, who together established protocols so that their citizens could enter Costa Rica temporarily to work in the collection of coffee, cane, melon, watermelon, oranges, tubers, among others.
For the period 2021-2022, it is expected that, through the southern border of our country, Panama, 8,000 to 10,000 indigenous people will enter for coffee harvests; and along the northern border, Nicaragua, about 7,000 temporary Nicaraguan workers.
