Agriculture and Sustainability of Nicaragua

Agriculture and Sustainability of Nicaragua Patrick Robinson, Tyler Aucoin, Addie Annis

Agriculture Bananas Sugarcane Cotton Rice Corn Tobacco Sesame Soy Coffee Major Exports Coffee Shrimp & Lobster Tobacco Beef Sugar Bananas Gold Timber Types of farming

Coffee • Half of the coffee farms are headed by women • There is a company CRS that helps educate the coffee farmers understand how to grow great coffee • The coffee farms are mostly in the northern part of the country • In 1999 there was a coffee decline and the economy was in trouble that’s when CRS (Catholic Relief Services) stepped in to help aid the farms • They helped by providing 5,000 families in 60 communities get food for there families. This helped them and convinced them to stay on the farms instead of looking for more work in other places

Banana Farming • Bananas were introduced in the early colonial period and were sold in the US in the 1860s. • When the bananas started being exported to the US there some small plots of the Gros Michael variety. • In 1989 the banana production reached to 132,000 tons. • Banana farmers and workers have been poisoned by one of the pesticides they use to help the bananas the pesticide is nemagon this product was produced by the doll chemical factories the Nicaraguan court charged the companies involved to pay the banana companies US$490 dollars so far they haven't given a dime

Sugar cane farming • The sugar farming industry has taken a huge hit since the introduction of artificial sweeteners • One farm in San Antonio, Nicaragua one sugar mill has converted to a power plant which opened more jobs during the year. In the sugar season they run the plant on sugar and when that is out of season they run it on eucalyptus. They sell the excess power back to the national grid. • The harvest of sugarcane is from November through May. The can grows better when it is a wet year. • Local processed sugar sells for $21 per 100lbs • In 2005 they planted 54,259ha of sugar cane

Cotton • Cotton was the second biggest export in 1980s • As cotton became more popular large land owners began to plant and cultivate there property. Which then led to pollution and lots of erosion problems due to the amount of pesticides they sprayed on the fields. • In 1989 the cotton total crop was 22,000 tons which was a severe decrease due to the lack of planting

Rice • The type of rice grown is aerobic rice or upland rice • The upland rice is grown on 66% of the rice region in Nicaragua • The school nutrition program provides kids in school in Nicaragua with a hot lunch that has rice. This program has taught schools and communities to use there rice to feed there children and families.

Corn • Corn is hard to grow in Nicaragua because if it rains too much the soil is too wet and if it doesn’t rain enough the soil is to dry. • The Nicaraguan corn farmers use velvet bean as a cover crop. This grows before the corn and provides protection and nutrition for the corn • They say that the velvet bean is Nicaragua's earth hat because it protects the corn and the soil from the either really dry conditions or the extremely wet conditions.

Tobacco • Tobacco farmers say that the Nicaraguan jet black soil is the key to them making great tobacco • Esteli is Nicaragua’s cigar making capital • Joya de Nicaragua was earliest brand of cigar from Nicaragua to gain notoriety in the US • 1959 Cuba’s best cigar makers left Cuba to find better soils to grow there tobacco. In the Somoza government saw a way to use Castro’s tobacco they took the best tobacco growers and cigar rollers and had them train the Nicaraguan they also got some of Cuba's best seeds to plant in there country.

Sesame • The sesame seed originates in Asia and Africa • It is harvested for its seeds called bennes or gingellies • They hold an oil that prevents them from becoming rancid or rotten • The oil from the seed known as teel oil is used in mostly India for cooking, but it also used in the production of soap and foods as well as medicines • The seeds are added to cookies and other baked goods and candy called benne cakes

Soy • Is grown for oils, food additives, and bio fuels • Soy is used in a lot of high protein foods

Beef • The first cattle were introduced by the Spanish in the 1500s • Cattle raising is most popular in Nicaragua east of Lago de Managua • Most beef are a variety of the Zebu • The Dairy cows are primarily Holstein, Guernsey, or Jersey • The dairy farms are located closer to the more populated areas. • Nicaragua has a unique breed of cattle called the La Reina

Shrimp & lobster • Nicaragua considers shrimp a non traditional export. • They have four farms in northern Nicaragua on the coast • Lobster diving is one of the few sources for work for the Moskito tribe. • They risk there life because most are not trained divers. • There is about 5000 Nicaraguan men that risk there lives each lobster season to dive up to 140 feet and grab lobster from the ocean floor. • Blue fields Nicaragua has a white lobster (AKA cocaine that washes up)

Resources • http://www.crsfairtrade.org/coffee/nicaragua.cfm • http://www.nicaraguasc.org.uk/aboutnicaragua/index.htm • http://www.sweetmarias.com/NicaTrip2003SelvaNegra.html • http://storiesofhope.crs.org/nicaragua/ • http://www.country-studies.com/nicaragua/crops.html • www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd9_energy_bp4a1.pdf • www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9264.html • www.ciat.cgiar.org/news/pdf/poster11_exhibit08 • www.farmradio.org/english/radio-scripts/50-4script_en.asp • www.smokemag.com/0903/feature.htm • http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/sesame.jsp • http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s030708/s030708.html

Agriculture and Sustainability of Nicaragua