Cotton

Cotton was Nicaragua’s second biggest export earner in the 1980’s. A latecomer to Nicaraguan agriculture, cotton became feasible as an export crop only in the 1950’s, when pesticides were developed the permitted high yields in tropical climates. Cotton soon became the crop of choice for large landowners along the central Pacific coast. A the amount of land under cultivation grew, however, erosion and pollution form the heavy use of pesticides became serious problems. Lack of credit for planting, a drop in world cotton prices, and competition from Chile discourages cotton production in the mid-1980’s. Production of cotton dropped significantly in the 1980’s, and the 1989 crop of 22,000 tons was less than a third of the produced in 1985.