AGRICULTURE
Only 6 % of Colombia's area is cultivated, and arable land estimated to be at least 20 percent of the country's total area. Thirty-five percent could be used as permanent pasture. Forty-five percent of the country is covered by forest and scrubwood. Agriculture contributes about 25 % of the local product and nearly 75% of the exports (excluding cocaine and cannabis). Cofee has been by far the most important commercial crop since the beginning of the twentieth century. There are approximately 300,000 coffee-growing farms, extending over a total area of 2.5 million acres, producing 654,000 tons of mostly-high quality coffee.
Next in importance as export crops are bananas, cotton, sugarcane, oil palms, pineapple and flowers. The main crops for domestic consumption are corn, rice, sorghum, potatoes, manioc and tobacco. The vast forest of the eastern lowlands and the Andes yield 17.5 million cubic meters of timber annually as well as serveral types of resins.
Animal products figure prominetly in agricultural exports. Twenty-four million cattle, 2.7 million sheep, 2.5 million pigs, nearly 2 million horses, and 932,000 goats were raised in 1987.
The share of the workforce in agriculture has declined from 54% in 1951 to 29% in 1988. The area under cultivation has more than doubled over the same period.
Click here to return to Colombia's page
Click here to return to Andean Countries' Index page