Costa Rica’s agriculture has been declining since the 1950’s, but in 1998 it accounted for 15% of the country’s GDP and employed one-fifth of the labor force. About 10% of the country’s land is used for agriculture and agricultural exports make up about 60% of the export flows. Traditional crops like bananas and coffee used to be the country’s primary crops, but a wide range of nontraditional products have made their way to Costa Rica. In the 1990’s coffee averaged about $370 million in export revenue. It only accounted for 4% of total export earnings in 2000. During the 1990’s banana production accounted for $624 in export revenue. Banana production is estimated to generate over 40,000 direct and 100,000 indirect jobs. Nontraditional agricultural goods have been rising in importance over recent years. Most of these goods are export oriented and linked to various forms of agroindustry. Examples are African palm used for the extraction of vegetable cooking oil, and oranges processed for their juice and exported as fluid or concentrate. African palm has been cultivated since the 1970’s, but has strongly increased since the 1990’s. By 1996 over 27,000 hectares were in production generating 422,000 metric tons of African palm. Orange production began as recently as 1990, and started by the construction of 2 processing plants. Production areas doubled in 6 years, reaching 23,500 hectares and 165,000 metric tons. The hearts of palm, ornamental plants, and macadamia nuts are other important nontraditional agricultural products used to generate revenue for Costa Rica.
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Costa Rica's Sources of Revenue 