The myth of agro-export model in Nicaragua: Introductory elements

Abstract

 This paper has been entitled “The myth of the agroexport model in Nicaragua: introductory elements”. It has the purpose to analize the factors to query the model existence. The methodology used was the documentary investigation; especially the historical documents review and some economic theories, as well as statistical data to reinforce the analysis. The results show 72% of production is intended to selfconsumption and national commercialization, only 8% is for exportation. In this case, the Nicaraguan economy has been configured by an agro-food and not an agro-export model. The idea of an agro-export model was created by the national bourgeoisie and theorized by intellectuals, who in a specific period questioned the internal structures of the model and its multidimensional effects, but they have never criticized the existence and consequently, they have omitted the contribution to the sovereignty and food security of rural domestic units. The basis of the national economy (1920-2020) are the same, the main items for exportation are still coffee and gold. The internal factors explain that it was not a plan as a development purpose, so the model depended of an international demand, agro-exportation as an activity did not constituted a country’s project instead of that was a project for bourgeois families at that time, and this generated a transformer process for economy at the national scale. On the other side, one of the external factors was a demand of the industrialized economies for agricultural products such as coffee and cotton. For the above mentioned, this study concludes that the agro-export model is a myth and the only model we have is an agro-food. In this sense, in order to improve the basis of the economy both of qualitative and quantitative, it is necessary that the Nicaraguan State develop the agro-industry into the national scale.