Cacao in Costa Rica

C O^OSTA RICA was of little importance as a cacao producing country until the United Fruit Company became interested in the industry in 1914. Desirous of replacing financial losses sustained by the decline of the banana industry in this country, the company replanted parts of the abandoned banana lands to cacao. This was an impetus to the industry and a rapid extension took place. Costa Rica has become the sixth most important cacao producing country of Latin America and the thirteenth of the world. It produced 8,074 tons in 1937. This comparatively new region produces the ordinary cacao of high quality, second only to that produced by Bahia, the premier producer of ordinary cacao of the world. The cacao industry of Costa Rica is of secondary importance to the country. Here on the Caribbean lowlands cultivation of bananas is the primary industry. Both industries are dominated largely by foreign capital. The coffee industry which is carried on chiefly on the highlands is the mainstay of Costa Ricans. The banana and cacao industries have less to do with the real lives of the natives except to contribute the returns usually received from industries that are exploited by foreign capital (Figure 1). Practically all the cacao of Costa Rica is produced in the low-lying district of the Caribbean coastal plain, although there is a small amount produced on the Pacific slopes in the hinterland of Punta Arenas. Because of insufficient rainfall in this latter area, the crop here is raised under irrigation. A few thousand pounds are exported every year, but due to the competition of the district on the Caribbean coast and other producing regions outside the country, production of this district figures little in the export trade. On the Caribbean lowland cacao is planted on available valley land or nearby hillsides in selected spots west from Limon along the Northern Railway to the Reventazon river and also on what is called the Old Line that branches off from the main railway at La Junta. In addition to these spots there are areas devoted to cacao southeast from Limon located two or three miles inland from the coast, extending to the Panama border, particularly along the Banano and Estrella rivers (Figures 2 and 3). Published statistics of cacao acreage are admittedly deficient. Those given in the government's annual publication for 1928 are 63,113 acres, having over 22,000,000 trees. There was little or no extension the next two years. In 1931 and since, low prices have made the industry unprofitable in many cases leading to the abandonment of acreage and destruction of trees to make room for other crops. The lowlands of Central America bordering the Caribbean Sea have a rainy low-latitude type of climate. They have high uniform temperatures, high relative humidity at all times and heavy rainfall well distributed throughout most of the year. The highest temperature at sea level reaches 95 degrees F. and for moderate elevation inland 90 degrees F. Extreme minimum temperatures range from 60

Geography · Political science · Cocoa and Sweet Potato Agronomy