Costa Rica's own traditional tropical crops such as coffee, cocoa beans and bananas do not yield high value per unit area, and their prices are extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in international markets. For the national economy to rely on these traditional crops is risky, so how to develop new high-value crops to replace the traditional ones has become a question of great interest to the Costa Rican authorities.
哥國本身所產之熱帶傳統作物如咖啡、可可、香蕉等，作物單位面積產值不高，而且價格受國際市場波動影響極大，國家的經濟依賴這些傳統作物的風險也相對的提高，如何開發新興的高產值作物來取代傳統作物，已成為目前哥國有關方面極為重視的課題。