Agricultural Status and Issues

Introduction:
Costa Rica, located in Central America, is a small country, with 54000 squared
kilometers, and with a population of only 4.5 millions, however is accountant of the
highest income per capita of the Central American Region, and a higher human
development index in comparison with the Latin American Average.
The GDP contributed by agriculture is 15%, employing approximately a bit less of 20%
of the population, and reducing.
The main agriculture is well diversified in several sectors, coffee, bananas, short cycle
crops, and also forestry plantation, represent the majority of the usage of the land.
However, the most valuable crops per hectare are vegetables and fruits, also flowers and
ornamentals. The most important crop, regarding the utilized surface for production,
continue to be the coffee, with 109,000 hectares, second by Rice (68,000), followed by
bananas (48,000) and sugarcane (56,000), other produces includes, beans, palm (oil), and
oranges.
Agricultural Status and Issues
The production of fruits and vegetables, green and leafy, has considerable improved, in
the last few years, an important number of companies, make contracts with smaller
producers, giving them technical assistance. The prices are being paid according to the
quality of the produce, and to the conformity to the laws of pesticides and chemical
residues. The production of Banana, and pineapple, belong to big corporations,
commonly multinationals such as DOLE, Chiquita, Standard Fruit and DelMonte,
sometimes, criticized by the civil population of being environmentally irresponsible;
however after this producers organized in the associations CORBANA and CANAPEP,
are being everyday more and more compliant with CSR and international standards.
The medium sized farms, from 3 to 10 hectares, are normally focused on the production
of vegetables, such as potatoes, tomatoes, white maize, rice, beans, yuca and onions.
The smaller sized farms, conform part subsistence farming, and also part small farms
who sell crops to bigger brokers which make them comply with international standards in
some cases. Is not Ideal by any means, however Costa Rica is one of the only countries in
Central America and the Caribbean who has managed to defragment the agricultural
sector, compared to other countries such as Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador,
Colombia, etc.
Also the immigrants from nicaragua, account an important part of the agricultural
economy, as nowadays more than 700,000 are both legally and illegally working in the
agricultural fields of banana, coffee, and other major produces. They have been
historically well welcome as they form part of the consumers and also contribute to the
workforce of Costa Rica, as everyday less and less people is willing to work in the
agricultural sector with other opportunities in the cities. However most of this immigrants

form part of the vulnerable group of Costa Rica, and account an important part of the
poverty in the country.
Regarding Cocoa beans, is one of the most important exports products for Costa Rica
accounting 5% of the world supply of Cocoa, and 10% of the gourmet sector. This is an
important crop not only to Costa Rica but culturally and historically to the region, as it
was previously considered food of the gods, in Greek Theobroma, which literally means
the same.
Currently associations of Cocoa, such as COOPEFRUTA, COOPALSUR, UNCASUR,
stand out for its cooperation and the reactivation of the cacao for export into the
international market, making Costa Rica, an important competitor in the cocoa market.
As mentioned before one of the most common issues specially in Latin America, and
focus on Central America, is the fragmentation of the land, with multinational corporation
controlling the majority of the agricultural land, and just producing cash crops for
exporting; however it is very nice to see as we discover that in Costa Rica there is an
association named CANACACAO, formed by 12 small and medium companies, with the
focus on compile all the small farms above mentioned with the goal of giving them all
international standards to compete in the global market, also focusing in obtaining
everyday more and more certifications of aromatic cacao, Certificado de originalidad
para cacao de aroma de exportacion which literally certifies the originality of the
aromatic cacao, with international quality standards. With the defragmentation of the
small farms, and giving opportunities to small subsistence farmers CANACACAO
became our first choice for our import of cocoa beans, due to the stable prices, consistent
production, certifications, and specially to their sustainability practices, as well as their
CSR policy, which focus on giving the farmers and stakeholders technical assistance and
commit to improve their quality of life through better paid labor and stable market for the
exports. They also offer the post process of cocoa beans, which we will not be using.