Even though this whole trip has been unusually warm and sunny, I somehow thought today wouldn’t be even hotter and muggier, even though we were on the Caribbean side of the continental divide. Being on that side is why we were touring a heart of palm farm instead of another coffee plantation. The conditions required are very different for heart of palm, including lots of sun and water, both of which are present on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.

In terms of our group’s topic, planning, the palmito plantation faces a couple unique challenges. First is the weather. Heart of palm requires a lot of water to grow, and the trend over the past decades and years has been that rainfall is decreasing. Compared to under 40 sunny days only decades ago, now there are over 150. With the decreasing amount of rainfall, crops will suffer and the farm will be much less sustainable. Thus, how do you plan for changes like this that are completely out of your control and could ruin the productivity of the farm? Another challenge is planning for distribution. Since heart of palm is sold both locally and internationally, the proportion of product sold locally and internationally as well as the specific markets the product is sold in can have big implications on profits.

Vamos Alajuelense!