Dak Nong (VNS/VNA)- A few years ago hundreds of people used to descend on coffeeplantations in the Central Highlands region to work as coffee pickersduring the harvest season when coffee prices were high.

However, now prices havefallen, there is less interest in the work.

According to manyplantation owners in Dak Nong province, coffee picking used toprovide a stable income for thousands of labourers.

Over the pastthree-four years, more and more coffee plantations had beenconverted to other crops, leaving the work less attractive, Dan Tri online newspaper reported.

Now many coffee farmers struggle tofind workers for the harvest.

Nguyen Van Dung, the ownerof a coffee plantation in in Dak Dro commune, Krong No district, said hisfamily began harvesting coffee in mid-November this year.

This year, labour costswere higher than last year, but it was still difficult to find workers dueto the low coffee yield, according to Dung.

Every day, he and his wife haveto work on the plantation from early in the morning to the late afternoonbecause they have only been able to hire two pickers.

In previous years duringthe harvest, coffee pickers got paid a daily wage, but now they want paying forhow much coffee they pick, with prices from 1,000-1,200 VND per kg of ripefruit.

The workers often choseplantations where the fruit was ripe to save time, the newspaper reported.

Hien, a coffee grower living inthe same commune as Dung, said coffee pickers could earn 400,000 VND (17.2USD) per day.

"We now have to findworkers. For this crop, I've hired 10 people. I have to prepareaccommodation and meals for them," Hien said.

"They will leave ifsomething makes them unhappy during the harvest."

"Every year, the coffeefarmers have search for pickers when the harvest comes. If the coffeeisn’t picked immediately, the trees can crack and fall to the ground.Quality will suffer and the coffee will be ruined."

Y Dem, a rice farmer living inDak Lak province, said he had worked as a coffee picker for seven years.

During the coffee harvest, hisfamily of seven travel to Dak Nong province to work onthe coffee plantationsgardens.

It takes four days toa week to pick coffee from a plantation and his family can make tensof millions of VND.

“Last week, we just finishedpicking 1ha of coffee, earning 12 million VND. Our daily meals are prepared bythe plantation owners," Y Dem said.

"We can get if a biggerbonus if we stop the branches from breaking."

Plantation owners also competewith each other by paying higher wages for workers and taking better carefor them during harvest time.

In recent years, manual workersin some delta provinces have moved to industrial zones because it is notas hard as picking coffee.

Meanwhile, a number of younglabourers from the Central Highlands had moved to big cities tofind jobs, leading to a shortage of coffee pickers, the newspaper reported./.