After a long day of picking coffee, Juan Torres, 60, rests on the wooden planks where he sleeps, inside a room he shares with other workers on a coffee estate near Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The farm employs mostly migrant workers who live on the farm during the coffee harvest and then return to their communities, far away. In the migrant bunk houses, which are common throughout the coffee lands, workers have very little privacy, and often lack access to toilets, potable water, or a place to keep their belongings safe.

Coffee workers hang on, as the truck that transports them to work gently winds through local roads near La Dalia, Nicaragua. The sight is not uncommon in this area, where many large coffee estates employ thousands of workers during the heavy harvesting months of November through February.

Around 150 workers jump off of a truck just before sunrise to begin their day of harvesting at La Finca La Revancha, a coffee estate near La Dalia, Nicaragua.

A woman begins her journey up the mountain, just before sunrise to harvest coffee at La Finca La Revancha, a coffee estate near La Dalia, Nicaragua. La Revancha became the first Fair Trade certified coffee estate in Central America in November 2013. The estate's owners have enforced a host of standards that not only enhance coffee quality but also benefit their 96 permanent and 500 temporary workers throughout the year.

Teams of workers use machetes to maintain coffee plants free of excess weeds at La Finca La Revancha, a coffee estate near La Dalia, Nicaragua. La Revancha became the first Fair Trade certified coffee estate in Central America in November 2013. The estate's owners have enforced a host of standards that not only enhance coffee quality but also benefit their 96 permanent and 500 temporary workers throughout the year.

Coffee workers wait in line to receive their payments at Finca La Revancha, a coffee estate owned by former Sandinista Army general Rodrigo González, near La Dalia, Matagalpa, a primary Arabica producing area in the Nicaraguan highlands.

Reina Isabel Guido leads her group to one of the highest points of Finca La Revancha (1,000m) in the early morning. La Revancha became the first Fair Trade certified coffee estate in Central America in November 2013. The estate's owners have enforced a host of standards that not only enhance coffee quality but also benefit their 96 permanent and 500 temporary workers throughout the year.

Eli Emanuel Raiter, 27, carries his grandmother, Angelica Flores Martinez, 94, to the Sunday Evangelical church service in the small community where they live, located on Finca La Revancha, a coffee estate in La Dalia, Matagalpa, a primary Arabica producing area in the Nicaraguan highlands. Flores picked coffee as a young girl and throughout her life, until she could no longer work and lost one leg to illness. With their first Fair Trade Community Development Premiums, the workers of La Revancha voted to create a monthly food assistance program for elderly people in the community, of which Flores is a recipient.

Coffee workers stand in line for breakfast at a large coffee estate in Nicaragua’s Matagalpa department. The estate employs over 600 workers at the height of the coffee harvest, November through February.

Prominent coffee producers from throughout Nicaragua enjoy a lunch occasion attended by the president of one of Nicaragua’s largest banks (left), with the aim of discussing how the bank could assist the large-scale producers during a period of falling prices and the onslaught of a vicious plant fungus (roya) outbreak that has decimated coffee crops throughout Central America and Southern Mexico in recent years.

A young man carries a heavy sack weighing approximately 60kg, filled with the coffee cherries he picked in one day, working on a coffee estate in Chiapas, Mexico. Many men leave their families in Guatemala to work as migrant laborers during the coffee harvest in Mexico, where they can have guaranteed work for several months and earn more than they can back home.

Coffee pickers check in after a long and arduous day of picking coffee cherries on a coffee estate in Chiapas, Mexico. Many of the farm’s workers are Guatemalan. They work as migrant laborers during the coffee harvest in Mexico, where they can have guaranteed work for several months and earn more than they can back home.

Coffee pickers check in after a long and arduous day of picking coffee cherries on a coffee estate in Chiapas, Mexico. Many of the farm’s workers are Guatemalan. They work as migrant laborers during the coffee harvest in Mexico, where they can have guaranteed work for several months and earn more than they can back home.

In Jaltenango, a primary coffee distribution center in Mexico’s Chiapas state, a team of workers efficiently load a truck with 492 sacks destined for a central depot in Tuxtla Gutierrez for further processing and export. Working together swiftly, the men can load a truck this size in 90 minutes. They load up to six trailers in one day. The carriers can earn up to 10 times what coffee pickers make in one day, making it one of the more desirable but also most challenging jobs in the coffee industry.

At the end of a long day picking coffee cherries, a group of Guatemalan women and children crowd around a community television to watch a popular Mexican “telenovela” (soap opera). This coffee farm, near Jaltenango, Chiapas, Mexico, provides above average living conditions for its workers, offering them consistent meals and concrete dormitories, in contrast to makeshift wooden structures on many other estates.

Guatemalan coffee pickers convene around a morning fire to warm the breakfast that will sustain them during a long day of harvesting coffee cherries in Chiapas, Mexico. They come yearly to this farm from Northern Guatemala. According to their group leader, they choose to return to this farm, since the owners give them rice, unlike on other farms, where abuse has been reported.

A Guatemalan woman carries a heavy bag of coffee cherries down a hill after harvesting all morning. She is among approximately 200 coffee pickers, employed by this large estate located near Jaltenango, a primary coffee distribution center in Mexico’s Chiapas state. The farm's manager, originally from Guatemala, makes an effort to provide adequate living conditions for workers, including meals and emergency health attention.

Aida Yanira Chavez, 3, plays around a coffee plant while her parents (mother pictured in background) pick coffee. Most Guatemalan coffee pickers working in Chiapas are either lone men or parents with young children who have no choice but to bring them along for the three-month harvesting season.

In Mexico's Chiapas state, Rosa Diaz searches for dwindling coffee cherries on plants infected with coffee leaf rust. The disease has spread fast and furiously in Southern Mexico and throughout Central America since 2012, decimating plants and causing some farmers to lose up to half of their harvests. Many experts believe climate change is to blame. Higher temperatures in the region have allowed the fungus to reach higher altitudes where coffee is grown.

A family from Colombo, Guatemala, sorts through hundreds of coffee cherries. The mother (right) complained about abuses on the farm where they previously worked. She said a previous farm’s supervisor refused to provide medical assistance when one of her children fell gravely ill and neglected to pay them for the labor they provided. Afraid of having to return to Guatemala empty-handed, they escaped one night walking until they found work with better conditions on this large farm managed by a fellow Guatemalan.

After picking coffee cherries for nearly ten hours, a father, Erminio Vasquez, 45, and his son, Wilson Vasquez, 17, sort through their daily harvest on a plastic tarp. Coffee pickers throughout Chiapas earn on average 80 pesos (USD 5) per day, depending on quantities picked. Vasquez said he would prefer to work in the United States, where he could earn much more. He tried once but had to stop when authorities robbed him of his money and belongings as he traveled north from Chiapas.

After a long and arduous day of picking coffee cherries, two men make their way across a creek and through dense vegetation to a main camp, where workers deliver their coffee harvests at the end of each day to be measured and recorded.

A group of mostly Guatemalan coffee pickers sort through thousands of coffee cherries collected during a day of harvesting, on a remote farm in Chiapas, Mexico. They must separate the unripe green cherries (used to make lower quality coffee) from the mature red cherries, that are processed into high quality Arabica coffee. On average, coffee pickers in Chiapas earn 80 pesos (USD 5) per day, based on volume picked, a rate higher than the wages attainable in their native Guatemala.

A group of mostly Guatemalan coffee pickers sort through thousands of coffee cherries collected on a remote farm in Chiapas, Mexico, separating the unripe green cherries (used to make lower quality coffee for national consumption) from the mature red cherries, that are processed into high quality Arabica coffee for export.

Women perform enhanced quality control measures by removing imperfect beans at Solcafe, CECOCAFEN’s dry processing plant and primary warehouse. Located in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, CECOCAFEN is an “umbrella” cooperative representing over 2,000 Nicaraguan producers of high quality coffee. The organization exports more than 2.5 million kilograms of coffee annually to the U.S. and Europe.

Estéban Castro Sanchez (L) and his cousin Santiago Corona Blanco transport coffee nearly four miles by mule to the nearest dirt road in Guerrero, Mexico. Lack of roads and banditry add to coffee growers' problems in Mexico and throughout Latin America. When global coffee prices dropped dramatically in the late nineties, Sanchez worried that the international price crisis could force residents near him to resort to violence or illegal drug cultivation to make ends meet.

Coffee harvesters separate out mature red coffee cherries at a Nicaraguan cooperative called Las Brumas, well known for producing some of the country's highest quality coffee.

Outside the Miraflor eco-lodge, Fernando Almendarez, 94, hand washes coffee beans prior to roasting them. The lodge’s owner started a movement among Nicaragua's small-scale organic coffee growers to teach them how to convert their farms into eco-lodges like this one, in order to augment their incomes and protect the environment.

Narcisso Reyes Gutierrez proudly inhales the aroma of his own coffee beans, before passing them on for inspection. Reyes is a member of a Nicaraguan cooperative named Las Brumas, well known for producing some of the country's highest quality coffee. Farmers belonging to Las Brumas benefited from the price premium placed on organic Fair Trade coffee and used these funds to build a school in their community and to improve roads.

In Guerrero, Mexico, young men clad in coffee sacks and masks, re-enact a massive hunt that culminates with the symbolic death of a fearless tiger. The tiger represents the threatening jungle terrain their ancestors faced nearly a century ago. While some residents fear the tradition is dying, others maintain that it has gained new meaning, by giving residents identity and hope during challenging economic times. For them, the metaphorical tiger symbolizes the threat of the global marketplace, which they perceive as a modern jungle.