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Farming Systems in Costa Rica plays a profound part in country’s agricultural sector, therefore in the economy and culture. It makes up about 6.5% of Costa Rica’s GDP, and 14% or the labor force (CIA). Depending on location and altitude, many regions differ in agricultural crops and techniques. The main exports from the country include: bananas, pineapples, coffee, sugar, rice, vegetables, tropical fruits, ornamental plants, corn, potatoes, and timber. Almost 10% of the countries land use is devoted to agriculture. Development and economic growth within the country is due to hastened agricultural-export production. Costa Rican farmers and multinational corporations within Costa Rica practice two primary methods of farming: Plantation agriculture which includes practices by global companies such as Dole, Chiquita, Del Monte, etc. and Sustainable/ Permaculture. There are also numerous indigenous communities that practice subsistence farming in the Limon Region on the Eastern side of Costa Rica.

History

The History of Costa Rica dates back about 3,000 years. The country’s name ‘Costa Rica’ translates to ‘Rich Coast’ because the first settlers to come across the country (Christopher Columbus; although the country was inhabited by indigenous well before) believed it to hold quantities of gold based on observations of indigenous inhabitants. The rolling mountains and dense jungles were full of biologic diversity but eventually found this original belief of a gold rich county to be wrong.
During the 19th century, coffee and banana cultivation brought some wealth to Costa Rica which resulted in class differentiation. During this time, in 1821, Costa Rica declared independence from Spain. Throughout most of the country's history, Costa Rica has remained quite peaceful besides a civil war in the 20th-century. This war was the most turmoil the country had ever witnessed. Soon after the war, around 1949, the country disbanded its military, so funds traditionally allocated for national defense were able to be utilized by conservation efforts.

Case Study

A study conducted by Rachel Clement and Sally Horn provides evidence of 3000 years of human occupation including forest clearance, agriculture and fires in the area . An in depth analysis of soil and sedimentary rocks was conducted in order to achieve these results. A pollen diagram was used on the soil to determine the history held in the soil. Research found near-continuous human occupation of the basin for the entire 3000-year period spanned by the pollen diagram. The pollen evidence indicated that people were living and growing maize during the time of the Curre´ archaeological phase (1500–300 bc). Fluctuations in pollen types and profusion of charcoal suggest that the intensity of human impact varied over this time period .

Major Agricultural Products

Rank	Commodity	Production (Int $1000)	Production (Mt)
1	Bananas	652108	2365470
2	Pineapples	533070	1870120
3	Cow milk, whole, fresh	286053	916657
4	Indigenous Cattle Meat	251409	93067
5	Indigenous Chicken Meat	141146	99091
6	Sugar cane	133433	4100000
7	Coffee	98440	91627
8	Fruit, Fresh	89112	255310
9	Indigenous Pigmeat	82997	53991
10	Palm oil	82990	190757 11 70233
11	Rice, paddy	70233	256460
12	Oranges	67640	350000 13
13	Cassava	47186	451700
14	Hen eggs, in shell	42896	51720
15	Other melons (inc.cantaloupes)	34485	187325
16	Mangoes, mangosteens, guavas	29958	50000
17	Papayas	17499	61657
18	Tomatoes	16881	45679
19	Avocados	16142	23294
20	Palm kernels	13164	51000

(FAO Statistics)

Land Use

Total area	51 100 km2
Density of population	89.6 persons per km2
Total area per 1000 population	11.2 km2 per 1000 population
Land area	51 060 km2
Land area per 1000 population	11.2 km2 per 1000 population
Land area (percentage of total area)	99.9 % of total area
Water surface	40 km2
Water surface per 1000 population	0.0 km2 per 1000 population
Water surface (percentage of total area)	0.1 % of total area
Agricultural land	27 500 km2
Agricultural land per 1000 population	6.0 km2 per 1000 population
Agricultural land (percentage of total area)	53.8 % of total area
Agricultural land (percentage of land area)	53.9 % of land area
Arable land	2 000 km2
Arable land per 1000 population	0.4 km2 per 1000 population
Arable land (percentage of total area)	3.9 % of total area
Arable land (percentage of land area)	3.9 % of land area
Arable land (percentage of agricultural land)	7.3 % of agricultural area
Permanent crops	3 000 km2
Permanent crops per 1000 population	0.7 km2 per 1000 population
Permanent crops (percentage of total area)	5.9 % of total area
Permanent crops (percentage of land area)	5.9 % of land area
Permanent crops (percentage of agricultural land)	10.9 % of agricultural area
Permanent meadows and pastures	22 500 km2
Permanent meadows and pastures per 1000 population	4.9 km2 per 1000 population
Permanent meadows and pastures (percentage of total area)	44.0 % of total area
Permanent meadows and pastures (percentage of land area)	44.1 % of land area
Permanent meadows and pastures (percentage of agricultural land)	81.8 % of agricultural area
Forest area	23 970 km2
Forest area per 1000 population	5.2 km2 per 1000 population
Forest area (percentage of total area)	46.9 % of total area
Forest area (percentage of land area)	46.9 % of land area
Other land	-410 km2
Other land per 1000 population	-0.1 km2 per 1000 population
Other land (percentage of total area)	-0.8 % of total area
Other land (percentage of land area)	-0.8 % of land area

(FAO Statistics)

Climate

According to the Koppen Climate classification, Costa Rica is considered a tropical/ mesothermal climate. The country lays at 10° 0' 0" N / 84° 0' 0" W causing year-round tropical weather. Average yearly rainfall varies greatly depending on location and altitude. Costa Rican seasons are actually defined by the amount of rainfall. The seasons are defined as Verano (which translates to summer) is the 'dry' season and runs from December to May, and Invierno (meaning winter) is the 'wet' season and runs from May to November.

Plantations in Costa Rica: Methods and Effects

The primary aspect of large-scale/ plantation agriculture is to produce very large quantities of agricultural goods. The more goods produced at such rapid rates, the less expensive the companies have to sell their products for, making them leaders in the world market. For the most part plantations in Costa Rica are monocultures. These plantations (i.e. Dole, Del Monte, Chiquita) primarily grow bananas, pineapples, sugar, coffee, and ornamental plants. Many crops cultivated through plantation farming are usually genetically modified to improve and hasten growth and increase resistance to pests and diseases. This type of agriculture requires altering and changing much of the landscape. Large sectors of forest are demolished to make way for huge high-yield corporate agricultural fields. This in turn has a major influence on surrounding ecosystems. Many of the methods practiced within these monocultures cause considerable effects on surrounding biodiversity and human communities. These agricultural fields are one of the primary causes of deforestation in Costa Rica. The clearing of forests makes more land open for plantations to harvest mass quantities of crops. Many plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammal populations are drastically declining. As a result of the heavy use of pesticides used in plantation farming many domestic flora and fauna are dying off. While some pests, such as the very venomous Fer de lance snake are rapidly multiplying. This is due to the fact that because so much land is cleared the snake species can capture its prey with much more ease, as there is less to hide behind. This along with deforestation then effects the countries biodiversity, which (for a country that is about the size of West Virginia) accounts for 5% of the world's biodiversity.

With such large areas of land to farm, this method of primarily monoculture farming requires the use of heavy machinery. This type of farming is also blamed for much of the countries green house gas emissions. But what makes our food system really unsustainable is "the globalized commodity trade that has resulted in the integration of the food supply chain and its concentration in the hands of a few transnational corporations. This greatly increases the carbon footprint and energy intensity of our food consumption, and at tremendous social and other environmental costs. Since 1999, the Rodale Institute’s long-term trials in the United States have reported that energy use in the conventional system was 200 percent higher than in either of two organic systems - one with animal manure and green manure, the other with green manure only - with very little differences in yields. Research in Finland showed that while organic farming used more machine hours than conventional farming, total energy consumption was still lowest in organic systems; that was because in conventional systems, more than half of total energy consumed in rye production was spent on the manufacture of pesticides"(Mitigating Climate Change).

Effects on surrounding human communities

Conventional agriculture has put pressure on indigenous ways of life. “Pesticide use has essentially doubled during the past 20 years from an estimated 30,000 tons of active ingredients applied annually in the 1980s.” In 2000, Costa Rica placed second in world pesticide use. Plantation agriculture was a significant contributor to the runoff and other adverse environmental effects caused by the pesticides because “more than one-third of these agrochemicals are used on banana and plantain production.” Export crops are the most detrimental, since they are “grown on large-scale plantations with intensive, prescribed agrochemical applications of up to 45 kg a.i./ha/yr.” (Whatley) Indigenous tribes lack legislation that would limit agrochemicals, so much of the runoff affects the rivers used by the BriBri.

Effects on biodiversity

Costa Rica’s rainforests house 5% of the world’s biodiversity and 26% of them are protected in some way (Biodiversity, 2011). The advent of genetically modified organisms has become an enormous industry because of the fragile nature of monoculture agribusiness of the United States and conventional plantations the Europeans introduced to Costa Rica. When hundreds of acres are deforested and covered with only one type of one plant, the farmer has elevated the potential for blights, insect infestations, and other disturbances to be disastrous. Nature knows that a diverse community of species not only act as biological controls for each other, but also stabilize the entire area because only some species will be affected by disturbances. Plantation agriculture taken the homes of many biota causing a huge shift in species diversity. One of the most venomous snakes in Costa Rica, the fer de lance, has actually benefited from this type of agriculture. As land is cleared for agro fields, their prey has fewer places to hide, causing a substantial ease in their hunt. Before plantations began to deforesting, fer de lance survival rate was only about 2%. Today, with increasing rates of deforestation and plantation agriculture their survival rate is somewhere between 60-70% (Don Juan).

Costa Rican Permaculture/ Sustainable Farming: Methods and Effects

Smaller-scale , sustainable agricultural methods are becoming increasingly popular throughout Costa Rica. With the countries declaration to become the first carbon-neutral country by 2021, this is their first step in attaining such a goal. Crop rotation is one of the practices executed by sustainable farmers in Costa Rica. Since many plants are planted together, one major benefit of crop rotation is that each crop has a different harvesting period providing food and income year-round. This method also reduces soil erosion, a major environmental issue in Costa Rica. Instead of using chemicals to prevent pests many of these farmers harvest plants such as lemongrass and citrosa, natural pest repellants. The use of crop rotation, and seasonally changing crops also deters pests that feed on particular individual types crops since that crop is only around for a short period of time. Companion planting is another method employed by sustainable farmers in Costa Rica. For example, planting mint around vegetables helps deter many pests as the aroma is unappealing to them. Planting rue helps in detering the Japanese beetle, a major agricultural pest. A newer technology method that sustainable farmers in Costa Rica are beginning to employ is the use of plug-flow anaerobic digesters. (ref)<Plug abd Flow> These machines are “long, narrow, insulated, and heated tanks made of reinforced concrete, steel or fiberglass with a gas tight cover to capture the biogas. It is loaded with thick manure of 11 – 14 percent total solids. When the manure reaches the outlet it discharges over an outlet weir arranged to maintain a gas tight atmosphere but still allow the effluent to flow out. Biogas produced by the digester is used to heat the digester to the desired temperature. Excess biogas can be used to run an engine generator. Heat can also be recovered from the engine generator and used for space or floor heating, water heating or steam production to offset the cost of purchased electricity, propane, natural gas or fuel oil used on the farm for daily operations” (/ref)<Plug and flow>. Leftover manure is then mixed with soil and added to the cropland. Around 18 percent of all greenhouse gas admissions can be attributed to animal agriculture today, therefore employing plug-flow digesters is another step Costa Rican sustainable farmers are taking to reduce green house gas admissions. With more sustainable farming methods employed in Costa Rica, less energy is generally required from the farmer because the agriculture system sustains itself.

Subsistance Farming in Costa Rica

This type of farming is practiced predominately by the indigenous tribes in Costa Rica. The main activity of the BriBri tribe is agriculture. The Limon region (82.8°- 83.3°W, 9.6°- 9.3°N) is one of the main areas indigenous farmers practice subsistence agroforestry. These tribes rely on natural growth within the forest as well as small sustainable gardens to produce enough food for a clan to survive on. The Bribri tribe of Talamanaca, reside in the Limon region and cultivate more than 120 wild and domestic crop species providing provisions, building materials, medicine, and trade items for the people (Bribri). Any food or resources left over are quickly traded for other commodities the clan cannot produce for themselves (i.e. medicine, food, clothes, etc). BriBri Indians implement different agricultural techniques to maintain and enrich their native traditions. Agroforestry, an interactive practice of positioning forest flora amongst crops that have mutualistic relationships is one of these traditions. “They use natural nutrient cycling and symbiotic relationships between plants, insects, birds, bats, and other animals to provide natural mechanisms for pest control, incorporate soil rejuvenating legume trees, and produce relay harvests throughout the year” (Whatley). Some other practices these subsistence farmers adhere to include: maintaining their natural resource base, manage pests and diseases through internal regulating mechanisms rather than pestisides and other chemicals, and relying on minimum artificial inputs from outside the farm system (Bribri). Many of these Costa Rican communities are beginning to the effects of globalization as many plantations are buying up land and invading indigenous areas. Recent government action has led to mitigation of such effects. “On September 12, the Administrative Tribunal of Contention ordered the relevant federal agencies – the Institute of Agrarian Development (IDA) and the National Commission of Indigenous Affairs (CONAI) – to expropriate more than 11,000 acres of land to be returned to the Bribri community of the Kekoldi reservation—this part of Bribri territory is currently occupied by non-indigenous people.” (Indian country).

References

Clement, Rachel M.; Horn, Sally P. (2001). Pre-columbian land-use history in costa rica: a 3000-year record of forest clearance, agriculture and fires from laguna zoncho. Holocene, 11(4), 419-426.
Plug flow digesters. (2002, August). Retrieved from http://www.biogas.psu.edu/plugflow.html Worldstat.info (2011). Costa Rica.
Agriculture costa rica information. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://costarica-information.com/about-costa-rica/economy/economic-sectors-industries
Massey, Ray; Ulmer, Ann (2010). Agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions. Retrieved from http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G310
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Lim Li Ching. (2011). Mitigating climate change through organic agriculture. Retrieved from http://www.i-sis.org.uk *(2 paragraphs)
Bribri of costa rica. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.agroecology.org/Case Studies/Bribri.html
Kearns, Rick. (2011). A historic victory in costa rica . Retrieved from http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/10/a-historic-victory-in-costa-rica/
Whatley, Neil. Agroecology. Retrieved from <http://www.agroecology.org/CaseStudies_NCAmerica.html> Biodiversity in Costa Rica. (2011). InBio: Instituto Nacionale de Biodiversidad. Retrieved 26 April 2011 from <http://www.inbio.ac.cr/en/biod/bio_biodiver.htm>
http://en.worldstat.info/Central_America_and_the_Caribbean/Costa_Rica/Land

Don Juan's Farm in Monteverde Costa Rica

Category:Agriculture in Costa Rica