Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a small cacao producer with a cultivation history reaching into pre-Columbian times. The modern sector is built on smallholder agroforestry farms, and the country is also a centre of cacao research through CATIE, the regional agricultural research and education centre, whose breeding programmes have developed clones used across the region.

Production concentrates in two main areas. The Talamanca region of the Caribbean Limón province is a smallholder landscape with a strong Indigenous farming tradition, where Bribri and Cabécar communities have grown cacao since pre-Columbian times; producers are organised largely through APPTA, founded in 1987, with many growers being Indigenous women. The northern lowlands around Upala, near the Nicaraguan border, form a second recognised cacao district where smallholders work small plots.

Cultivated Costa Rican cacao is predominantly admixed, classed traditionally as Trinitario, and includes CATIE-developed clones alongside older mixed material. The crop was hit hard by the spread of frosty pod rot (moniliasis) through Central America, which sharply reduced output, but organic and agroforestry-focused smallholder production, often farmed under heavy shade against high rainfall, sustains the origin and a domestic craft-chocolate scene.