Agriculture of Nicaragua

Ironies abound in Nicaragua's historically dominant agriculture sector. The country's relatively low population density and its wealth of land resources have both held the promise of solutions to poverty and been a major cause of it. The importance of one or two crops has meant that the country's entire economy has undergone boom-or-bust cycles determined primarily by worldwide prices for agriculture exports.

Coffee became the country's principal crop in the 1870s, a position it still held in 1992 despite the growing importance of other crops. Cotton gained importance in the late 1940s, and in 1992 was the second biggest export earner. In the early 1900s, Nicaraguan governments were reluctant to give concessions to the large United States banana companies, and bananas never attained the level of prominence in Nicaragua that they reached in Nicaragua's Central American neighbors; bananas were grown in the country, however, and were generally the third largest export earner in the post-World War II period. Beef and animal byproducts , the most important agricultural export for the three centuries before the coffee boom of the late 1800s, were still important commodities in 1992.

From the end of World War II to the early 1960s, the growth and diversification of the agricultural sector drove the nation's economic expansion. From the early 1960s until the increased fighting in 1977 caused by the Sandinista revolution, agriculture remained a robust and significant part of the economy, although its growth slowed somewhat in comparison with the previous postwar decades. Statistics for the next fifteen years, however, show stagnation and then a drop in agricultural production.

The agricultural sector declined precipitously in the 1980s. Until the late 1970s, Nicaragua's agricultural export system generated 40 percent of the country's GDP, 60 percent of national employment, and 80 percent of foreign exchange earnings. Throughout the 1980s, the Contras destroyed or disrupted coffee harvests as well as other key income-generating crops. Private industry stopped investing in agriculture because of uncertain returns. Land was taken out of production of export crops to expand plantings of basic grain. Many coffee plants succumbed to disease.

In 1989, the fifth successive year of decline, farm production declined by roughly 7 percent in comparison with the previous year. Production of basic grains fell as a result of Hurricane Joan in 1988 and a drought in 1989. By 1990 agricultural exports had declined to less than half the level of 1978. The only bright spot was the production of nontraditional export crops such as sesame, tobacco, and African palm oil.

Forests

Nicaragua has extensive forests, and despite the large-scale clearing for agricultural use, about one-third of the land, or approximately 4 million hectares, was still forested in 1993. Most of the forests consist of the tropical rain forests of the Caribbean lowlands, where surface transportation is practically nonexistent. Hardwoods abound in this region, but the stands are mixed with other wood, making exploitation difficult. However, some logging of mahogany, cedar, rosewood, and logwood for dyes takes place. In addition, the large stands of pine in the northeast support logging and a small plywood industry.

The Atlantic coast region of Nicaragua contains the largest tropical rainforest reserves in Central America

•Wild life and Biodiversity

The Wildlife of Nicaragua includes its flora and fauna. Nicaragua has a wide variety of wildlife, most of which live in wildlife reserves and live in rainforests, lakes, mountains, and volcanoes throughout the country. Bosawás covers 1.8 million acres (7,300 km²) making it the 2nd largest rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil and is extremely rich in Biodiversity.

Nicaragua has 78 protected areas that include wildlife refuges and nature reserves that shelter a wide range of ecosystems. Flora and fauna species are in the thousands. There are about 12,000 vegetable classified species, another 5,000 not classified yet and there are more than 1,400 classified animal species. There are also over 250,000 insect species.

A sea turtle on the beach in Nicaragua.

Perhaps the creature that Nicaragua is best known for is the sea turtle. Each year thousands of sea turtles make the journey from the sea to the beach where they spend the entire night digging and nest and laying their eggs before returning to the waters. Unfortunately the sea turtle has become an endangered animal and so extensive efforts are being made to preserve them as much as possible.

Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River is home to the Nicaragua shark which is the worlds only freshwater shark. Nicaragua has recently banned freshwater fishing of the Nicaragua shark and sawfish because of population declines.

The central highlands region has extensive forests of oak and pine on the slopes, but lower valley elevations show damage from fire and agricultural activities. The largest pine savanna in the rainy tropics stands on the lowlands behind the Mosquito Coast. The wet and humid Caribbean coastal plain has an abundance of tropical forest, with wild rubber, cedar, ebony, mahogany, and rosewood attracting some exploitation.

Wildlife includes the puma, deer, monkey, armadillo, alligator, parrot, macaw, peccary, and several species of snakes (some poisonous). Lake Nicaragua contains the only freshwater sharks in the world, owing to a prehistoric geological movement that separated the lake from the Pacific Ocean, gradually changing the ocean water into fresh water.