TWO VIEWS OF THE COF¬ 
FEE INDUSTRY, COSTA 
RICA'S MOST IMPORTANT 
SOURCE OF WEALTH 
Upper view shows a coffee 
tree laden with fruit; the 
lower illustrates coffee in 
the drying process. The 
picking and preparation of 
coffee extends over a per¬ 
iod of some five months, 
usually from November to 
April. 
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fruit is cultivated almost entirely on the Atlantic coastal plains and the greater 
part of the crop is purchased by the United Fruit Company which itself has 
large plantations there. The Atlantic banana area extends from the Sixaola 
River in the south to the Colorado River in the north and embraces a section 
of about 2,800 square miles, approximately 800 square miles of which are 
under cultivation. The area is served by the Costa Rica Railway and the 
Northern Railway which bring the bananas from the interior growing fields 
to the ports. Nearly all banana exports clear through the port of Limon, a 
small percentage being shipped by way of Puntarenas or from the port of 
Sixaola on the southern Atlantic coast. Virtually all of Costa Rica’s bananas 
are shipped to the United States. 
Banana production in Costa Rica was once much greater than it now is. 
The exhaustion of lands not properly fertilized and the destructive attacks of 
the “Panama disease” on the plantations have lessened the Costa Rican yield 
and in 1935 banana exports were only around 3,000,000 bunches as compared 
with about 10,000,000 in 1915. Production per acre is about 160 bunches 
on the best lands and on the older and poorer farms about 80 bunches. Exten¬ 
sive banana areas in Costa Rica have been abandoned because of soil exhaus¬ 
tion. The discarded plantations, however, are often replanted with cocoa, 
as noted below, and new banana areas are gradually being opened up on 
the Pacific side of the Cordillera. 
Cocoa production in Costa Rica has been greatly stimulated by foreign 
capital. The area under cultivation, estimated at approximately 74,000 
acres, is almost twice what it was in 1922. It is believed, however, that 
nearly 370,000 acres in Costa Rica are suitable for cocoa culture. The soil 
is a good loam of fine depth which contains organic matter necessary for the 
growth of. the cocoa tree. Witchbroom and the cocoa beetle, two of the 
most devastating of cocoa pests, are almost unknown in Costa Rica but there 
are certain other, minor plant diseases against which the grower must guard. 
Except for a small area on the Pacific coast near Puntarenas where irrigation 
is required, all the plantations are along the Atlantic coast in the Limon 
district. In recent years the cultivation of cocoa trees on discarded banana 
plantations has been promoted and from present indications it appears that 
this trend will become more pronounced in the future. The trees are care¬ 
fully tended and modern facilities are used for collection of the pods, fermen¬ 
tation and drying operations. While far less important than the coffee and 
banana crops, cocoa contributes a substantial amount to Costa Rica’s total 
export trade. Between ten and eleven million pounds of cocoa beans are 
exported each year, mostly through the port of Limon. The LTited States 
is the chief purchaser of the Costa Rican crop. 
Subsidiary agricultural crops are sugar cane, cultivated in the warmer 
sections of the central plateau, corn, beans, potatoes, and rice. There are 
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