Agricultural Innovation in Costa Rica Leads to Higher-Quality Crops

Researcher Gaudy Ortiz Rivera gives our team a tour of one of the greenhouses where she works.

In Costa Rica, the National Institute of Innovation and Agricultural Technology Transfer (INTA) leverages technology and scientific research to improve varieties of crops from papaya to plantains – thereby streamlining production and improving outcomes for local farmers. 

At INTA’s Los Diamantes Experimental Station in Guápiles, researchers carefully cultivate new plant varieties and study their performance in the field. Other areas of the station, which encompasses nearly 1,800 acres, are dedicated to efforts including forest protection, experimentation in sustainable ranching, and the propagation of crops such as plantains, and abacá, or Manila hemp – a plant in the same family as bananas and plantains that is renowned for the strength of its fibers.

INTA has supplied farmers in each of Costa Rica’s seven provinces, with a focus on small farmers. While extension agents can coordinate plant pick-ups and then distribute the plants to farmers, producers are also welcome to connect with INTA directly. The institute doesn’t have a minimum on the amount of plants that must be purchased, helping to increase accessibility for small farmers. Additionally, INTA aims to keep the prices of its plants affordable and provides a discount to registered farmers. 

Improved Papaya Varieties

Papayas grow at INTA's Los Diamantes Experimental Station in Guápiles, Costa Rica.

In the case of papaya, for example, decades of research and cultivation have led to new varieties such as the Pococí papaya, or “perfect papaya,” released in 2006, which is now grown throughout Costa Rica. 

As of 2019, the Pococí variety accounted for 90% of the country’s papaya production, according to the University of Costa Rica. In the 1990s, the papaya varieties grown in Costa Rica had variability issues – while one fruit might taste great, the next one could have a very different flavor, explains researcher Antonio Bogantes, who has been developing new papaya varieties at INTA for more than two decades. 

Our team sampled papayas fresh from the station's trees!

The Pococí variety was originally intended for the local market, but it became so successful that it began to be exported, generating millions of dollars, Antonio adds. Despite the success of the Pococí variety, he would like to see some of its characteristics improved, such as the firmness of the fruit. 

Standing in a field of papaya trees at the Guápiles station, Antonio chose several papayas of different varieties for our team to sample, each with their own unique flavors, color, and shape – including one with an acidic hint and the compact papaya variety sized for one person. (They were all delicious!)

For more about INTA's papaya research, watch our latest reel on Instagram.

Cultivation Process in the Lab and Greenhouse

Some of the many crop varieties cultivated at Experimental Station Los Diamantes

In addition to developing new papaya varieties, the experimental station also carefully selects and reproduces plants such as plantains and abacá, which is a type of banana cultivated for its strong fibers. 

Gaudy Ortiz Rivera, researcher and coordinator of the station’s crop cultivation lab, and her team care for the young plants during a complex multi-step reproduction process that culminates with a period of acclimatization in a series of greenhouses, enabling the plants to gradually adapt to outdoor growing conditions. 

Gaudy and her team carefully choose each plant, aiming to cultivate plants free of genetic mutations that could impact them. During each step of the process, Gaudy and her team take an array of precautionary measures, such as disinfecting their shoes before entering a greenhouse, to protect the vulnerable young plants from contamination. 

“The impact this has on farmers is that the seed is healthy, free of fungi, bacteria, nematodes, and weevils—which is not the case with the traditional vegetative seed that farmers are used to handling,” Gaudy says. 

They also take steps aimed to reduce costs and improve sustainability, such as growing plants in pots that can be sanitized and reused. 

The lab cultivates plants on a per-order basis, with the capacity to produce 4,000 plants per week—or  more than 100,000 plants in a year! Their main limiting factor is labor, explains Gaudy, adding that she would like to implement some systems to help streamline the reproduction and cultivation process. 

Sustainable Ranching

La Estación Experimental Los Diamantes tiene más de 300 cabezas de ganado.

The station also experiments with sustainable ranching techniques that farmers can implement, creating positive changes such as increasing the amount of organic carbon in soils. 

Allan Villegas, who coordinates the station’s livestock area, explains that sustainability is a key focus of his work, which involves adapting local cattle breeds to the pressures of climate change. The local breeds have the added benefit of emitting less methane—a potent greenhouse gas—than other breeds, Allan explains. He also works with breeds such as Brahmans, which are known as the “king of the tropics” and may emit less methane than many other breeds. 

The sustainable practices they implement in the livestock area, which functions as an experimental farm, include living fences and maintaining scattered trees in pastures. These practices can have measurable impacts on farms, according to Allan.

For more information about INTA or for other questions related to agriculture, please contact us at info@asekia.org.