Coffee is the oldest agricultural export, tracing back to the 1790s. In the early 1800s, the Costa Rican government used tax exceptions to increase the crops popularity among farmers. Even though Costa Rica is known for their high quality coffee, low international prices have eroded its importance and value in relation to export earnings.¹

Yearly export revenue from sugar contributes 39 millions dollars to the Costa Rican economy. However, unlike bananas and coffee, sugar production is mainly for local consumption. Locally, Costa Ricans consume 2.6 million tons of sugar annually and use 48,000 hectares of land for production.¹

As mentioned in other sections, rice is a basic staple of Costa Rica diets. Because it is so heavily consumed, Costa Rica must supplement their production with imports to come up with the 236,000 metric tons of rice they consume annually. In fact, it is actually cheaper for Costa Rica to import rice for local consumption and export the rice produced within their own country.¹

In 1947, 25 milk companies came together to form Dos Pinos Cooperative in order to avoid price abuse and to have a clear purpose, which was to support small dairies. This one company produced 85% of the countries milk products and also distributes to various countries in Central America. In regards to meat production, the cattle industry has been quite damaging to the local environment. Whether this be from trampling greenery, deforestation, threatening natural species, or using over 2/3 of agricultural land. Despite these troubles, many Costa Ricans view ranching as a profitable and prestigious career.¹

Banana production has surpassed all other agricultural sectors in that Costa Rica is the second largest supplier of Bananas in the world. This section of agriculture produced roughly 625 million dollars in revenue for the Costa Rican economy between 1994-99. It is estimated that the Banana industry generates in total 140,000 jobs and offers the best salaries and benefits of all the agricultural sectors.¹

Nontraditional agriculture has been on the rise in the recent years due to export demands from the agro-industry. Some of these examples include the African palm, oranges, hearts of palm, ornamental plants, and macadamia nuts. In the last 2 decades Costa Rica has produced 422,000 metric tons of African palm and 165,000 metric tons of oranges. The rise of demand for these nontraditional agricultural products is helping to stimulate and boost Costa Rica's declining agricultural sector.¹