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Geography, agriculture and the economy

Geography

The Republic of Colombia is one of the largest countries in Latin America, with a total land area of 1,141,748 km². Its northern coast is on the Caribbean Sea and it has a western coast on the Pacific Ocean. Estimated population in 2007 was 46.1 million and the annual population growth rate was 1.2 per cent. About one quarter of the population lives in rural areas.

The country has remarkable regional and ecological diversity, from the cold Andean highlands in the south to the tropical and humid high valleys in the central regions and from the jungle and humid lowlands in the Amazonian regions to the dry lands of the northern Atlantic region. Among Colombia’s natural resources are gold, silver and emeralds. The country is vulnerable to volcanic eruptions in the highlands, occasional earthquakes and periodic droughts. Environmental concerns include deforestation and the deterioration of soil and water quality as a result of overuse of pesticides.

Agriculture

The rural population included about 2.4 million households in 2003, and there were 1.4 million farms, of which 1.1 million were small-scale farms.

The positive performance of agriculture in the 1970s and 1980s took a downturn in the 1990s, when average annual growth in agriculture dropped 2.6 per cent, mainly because of high production costs, excessively abrupt elimination of protectionist policies, insecurity and violence, and a sharp drop in world prices for some of the country’s exports. There has been a strong recovery in the sector since the late 1990s, with an increase of the amount of cultivated land of more than 15 per cent. In 2007 agriculture’s share of GDP was 11 per cent (World Bank).

The main agricultural products are coffee, cut flowers, bananas, rice, tobacco, corn, sugar cane, palm oil, cocoa beans, oilseed and vegetables, Rural people gather forest products and fisheries produce shrimp. The main crops for export are coffee, sugar cane, flowers and tropical fruit. About 21 per cent of Colombians are employed in the agricultural sector. 

Economy

The Colombian economy shows signs of strong growth, rebounding from an economic slowdown and high unemployment rate in the 1990s. The causes of the slowdown included the perisistence of political and criminal violence in rural areas and overly rapid implementation of economic and institutional reforms.

Since 2000 GDP has more than doubled. It reached an estimated US$171.9 billion in 2007 and showed an annual growth rate of 7.5 per cent (World Bank). But the income gap between rich and poor is widening, and since 2000 the incidence of poverty among the rural population has increased. Unemployment remains high among poor people in rural areas, particularly among small-scale farmers, self-employed workers and day labourers, and particularly among women.


Source: IFAD