It's a pattern of underemployment. They'll work during the harvest. They'll work during the planting season. But during the dry season, from November to May, they're unemployed. The solution is land reform.
Peasants see land as their only means of access to better income and security.
In 1961, the Costa Rican government started a land reform program which identifies unused plots, negotiates a fair price and purchases the land, then grants it to landless farmers. World Vision worked with Guanacaste's poor for several years before recognizing that it could not truly help them without addressing the root problem of land. Plenty of land was going unused in Guanacaste. A month later, World Vision was helping them organize their own peasant association. World Vision is helping make the government's land program succeed.