The Relationship Between the Slope of the Terrain and Agricultural Productivity in Costa Rica, Central America

Abstract

An average slope index and a number of agricultural productivity indices were determined for a sample of 100 districts in Costa Rica. To establish the relationship between these variables, correlation coefficients were calculated between the average slope index, on the one hand and, on the other, total gross agricultural income, total net agricultural income and also income and yields for individual crops. These relationships were calculated for the meseta central (the central, highly-populated area) and for areas outside of the meseta central and for the total sample taken from all of Costa Rica. Cases in which gross agricultural incomes were much lower than predicted by the study were investigated further to identify other factors which may have influenced the results.