IMPACT OF GLOBAL AGRICULTURE IN COSTA RICA
800,000 Nicaraguans work in Costa Rica at the peak of varying crop seasons;
Panamanians and Guatemalans also migrate to Costa Rica temporarily. These
workers pick coffee beans, cut sugar cane, and plant and harvest bananas.
The work is dangerous: They wear high boots, long-sleeved shirts, and heavy
gloves, despite working in tropical temperatures, to avoid contact with
deadly snakes; vipers and coral snakes pose a constant danger.
The Costa Rican school schedule is determined by the coffee-bean picking
season. Between December and February, whole families can work on the
coffee plantations; children as young as five or six work from sun up to sun
down.
Despite the hard work of these migrants and indigenous farmers, major food
producers such as Del Monte, Dole, and Standard Fruit Company are planning
to move banana production from Costa Rica to Ecuador. You see, banana
plants produce for only ten years; thereafter, plantations must be replanted.
So why move the production to Ecuador? Because they can pay Ecuadoran
laborers $8/day rather than the $12/day paid to those working in Costa
Rica, thereby reducing the $7/box cost to $4. Considering 460 million
boxes of bananas are shipped each year, that corporate savings is huge.
Naturally, Costa Rica’s economy is threatened by such a move. Coffee as an
international commodity is already too competitive to be profitable. Now,
banana production is threatened.
Such is the impact of capitalism and global agriculture on Industrializing and
Least Industrialized Nations.