ABSTRACT
The social and economic organization of Guatemalan export production enabled large amounts of coffee and bananas to be produced, but it was not a social and economic structure conducive to general economic development. The demand in foreign markets for coffee led to its commercial cultivation as an export crop in Costa Rica during the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century, however, that growers in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua responded to the strong European demand by beginning systematic cultivation for export. Coffee and bananas were the principal exports in Central America, but there were important national differences in the way their production was organized. But even in Costa Rica, coffee and banana exports were not the basis for a strong, durable, and self-sustaining national economic growth. There are some definite parallels between the development of the coffee export economy in El Salvador and Guatemala.
