Coffee in

Costa Rica

 Coffee industry was

the main activity
during this period.
After 1850 coffee
industry was
stimulated by the
high prices

Expansion of the agricultural frontier

Cultivation initially concentrated

around San Jos, after 1850, extended
to Cartago, Heredia and Alajuela.
1830 conquer of
virgin lands in the
western portion of
the Central Valley(
coffee after 1860)

 After 1890 coffee

flourished in the
valleys of the
Reventazn and
Turrialba.
1930 coffee was being
planted in San Carlos,
Nicoya and Tarraz,
but most of the
harvest continued to
come from San Jos
and environs

Coffee was an injection of progress into

the social and economic life of Costa Rica

Allow the import of fashionable

goods and technology
The opening of new roads and the
improvement of the old ones.
( specially that wich linked San Jos
and the Pacific Cost)

 Diversification of the internal market

( new activities coffee
transportation, sale of food stuffs)

Social and Political Effects

The losers in this process were poor
peasants, and indigenous
communities, hurt by the
privatizations of common lands.
Most of natives went to Talamanca.
The destiny of the poor peasants was
wage labor.

 Conformation of a Coffee
Elite, that also had the
political power.
A new class of merchant
families, the cafetaleros,
emerged. They
monopolized credits
(e.g. loans to pay for the
coffee harvest),
constructed beneficios
and controlled import
and export trade.

 At the beneficios the coffee was

collected, stripped of its skin and
husk and prepared for export.

Environmental effects

Agricultural colonization replaced

jungles and forests with planted
fields and active pastures.