Life of Guano workers, Peru

Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again

• Guano is an undeniably strenuous enterprise from the perspective of the laborers who migrate to the islands to collect the dung each year. The laborers rise before dawn to scrape the hardened guano with shovels and pick-axes.

• Many go barefoot, their feet and lower legs coated with guano by the time shifts end in the early afternoon.

• The workers earn monthly salaries of about $600, more than three times what manual laborers earn in the impoverished highlands, where most of them are from

• Guano in Peru sells for about $250 a ton while fetching $500 a ton when exported to France, Israel and the United States. Its status as an organic fertilizer has also increased demand, transforming it into a organic niche fertilizer sold around the world.