By Amanda Roberson, Tico Times Staff

Hotels in north-central Costa Rica will have a chance to help the environment and reduce spending through an energy-saving program carried out by the nonprofit Energy Network Foundation (BUN-CA), according to a statement from the foundation.

The program’s goal is for hotels to learn and implement energy-saving techniques such as turning off air conditioners in empty rooms, coordinating food preparation schedules to avoid constantly opening freezers and turning off unnecessary lights, BUN-CA engineer Kattia Quirós explained.

“It’s an intelligent investment,” Quirós said of the 12-month program, through which participating hotels can receive energy consultation from BUN-CA experts or outside consultants.

All businesses should save energy to reduce the country’s energy demand and avoid a shortage, Quirós said. Hotels, in particular, have the ability to control consumption and can take small steps that will soon produce economic and environmental benefits, she said.

The program has already been carried out successfully with 15 hotels in the Central Pacific region, Quirós explained, and the foundation has received an equally enthusiastic response from hotels in the north-central areas of La Fortuna and San Carlos. So far, 14, hotels have expressed interest in taking part in the program, and BUN-CA is visiting each hotel to select seven to participate.

The Central Pacific hotels that participated in the program reduced their energy bills by almost 24%, and they may use these positive results to work toward obtaining a Certificate of Sustainable Tourism from the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), the statement said.

The long arm of Ernesto did little damage to Costa Rica, and the country barely felt the presence of Pacific Tropical Storm John, which was 250 miles or 400 kms. southeast of Acapulco earlier today.

The country’s emergency commission reported that some houses in Heredia suffered wind damage Sunday from Ernesto. In Santa Domingo two homes lost their roofs, said the Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias.  In Calle Quintana de Santo Domingo one home was flooded by a sewer backup. Trees were down.

There was a landslide in Barrio La Milpa where a home suffered damage to its roof from shifting soil, the commission said. In Tibás a home faced danger from a slide caused by the weight or a nearby factory, the commission said. The residents slept with family elsewhere.

There was some flooding, and the commission was cautious.

But the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional was downright happy: “Ernesto is not now a danger to the county,” it said in a press release late Monday. The weather experts promised sunny skies this morning with afternoon downpours in the Valley Central and the Pacific coast. The northern zone and the Caribbean slope are supposed to be rain-free with lots of heat.

Ernesto was nearing the northern coast of Cuba. It still was a tropical storm with sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). It was expected to hit the Florida keys by this evening. Some five to 10 inches of rain are possible over southern Florida, said the hurricane center.

The center says the storm will be moving over the Caribbean island nation for most of the day Monday with winds of 72 kph, well short of hurricane strength. Authorities in Cuba evacuated tens of thousands of residents Sunday.

The storm is on a path that is expected to take it across Cuba toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it could become a hurricane for a second time. It drenched Haiti and the Dominican Republic Sunday at hurricane strength, leaving at least one person dead in  Haiti.

Residents in the Florida Keys are bracing for Ernesto. The National Hurricane Center has posted a hurricane watch for the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula, including the Keys and the Miami area.

The U.S. national Hurricane Center said early today that John was nearing hurricane strength in the Pacific. The storm was expected to drop up to four inches on the Mexican coast, something forecasters said was life-threatening.

The United States will allow importation from Costa Rica of pink and red tomatoes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has ruled.

The ruling also covers El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

The department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced Monday that it is amending its regulations to allow, under certain conditions, the importations.

Tomatoes were not allowed in the past due to concerns about insects and diseases.

To be eligible for importation, the tomatoes must be grown and packed in areas free of the Mediterranean fruit fly. A preharvest inspection of the production site must be conducted by the national plant protection organization of the exporting country and the site must be found free of pea leafminer, a destructive pest of vegetables and flowers; tomato fruit borer, a serious tomato plant pest; and potato spindle tuber viroid, a disease that affects tomato and potato crops, the department said.

The tomatoes must also be packed in insect-proof containers or covered with insect-proof mesh or plastic tarpaulin during transit to the United States, it added.

In addition, each shipment of tomatoes must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the exporting country with an additional declaration stating that the tomatoes were grown in a Medfly-free area and the shipment was inspected and found free of all pests listed in the requirements.

In Costa Rica, the Ministerio de la Producción will do the inspection and certification.

This final rule was scheduled to be published Monday in Federal Register and was to become effective upon publication.

By Blake Schmidt  Tico Times Staff

Río Lagarto, Guanacaste – Disillusioned with life as a beer vendor in the stuffy, smoke-choked suburban Central Valley, Carlos Bolaños packed his bags and headed for the hills of this northwestern province.

He wanted to be a farmer.

He found himself working this yellow patch of a small valley between rolling hills, harvesting Costa Rica’s most basic crop: rice.

“This is my dream. I’m living my dream. I just hope it doesn’t become a nightmare,” he said.

Here, in the well-irrigated plains north of Río Lagarto, about 15 kilometers north of the agricultural town of Cañas, anxiety is brooding in the heart of Costa Rica’s rice industry. Bolaños is one of hundreds of small rice producers here, many of them subsistence farmers, wondering whether upcoming harvests might be their last.

Costa Rica, a country seemingly addicted to rice and beans, is demanding more and more rice. At the same time, small and medium producers here are struggling against ravenous plagues, mounting debts, and competition from importers of U.S. government-subsidized rice.

Another storm cloud is brewing on the horizon for this troubled industry, prompting producers to plead with legislators not to strip them of their protections.

If the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) is ratified by Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly, the national rice production industry says it will be left naked before foreign rice growers – largely U.S. farmers benefiting from billions of dollars of government subsidies.

“I’ll be left to cover myself with one hand in front and one hand behind,” said Bolaños, who has taken on “snowballing” debt to cultivate his 6.5 hectares. Producers warn that the national rice industry – particularly small and medium growers – could become extinct within a year if the controversial trade pact goes into effect.

Under CAFTA, the 35% tariffs on rice imports would be eliminated during the next 20 years. Perhaps more significant, rice wholesalers in Costa Rica would no longer be required to buy up all higher-cost, lower-quality domestic rice before turning to importers to buy the grain.

Opponents say CAFTA would mean massive poverty among already struggling farmers as industries like rice production slowly fade. And Costa Rica, where the average person consumes more than a kilogram of rice each week, would have to depend on imports for its dietary staple – the only food product subjected to government price controls.

Not only would that present an anomaly for a rice-rich culture – reliance on imports for a food found in practically every comida típica, from gallo pinto for breakfast, to arroz con pollo for lunch or casado for dinner – it could present a security issue, producers warn.

Costa Rica is the only of seven countries that has not ratified the trade pact. Polls showing declining support for CAFTA (TT, Aug. 18) and a proposal-congested Congress that has fallen behind schedule have complicated the pact’s fate.

President Oscar Arias, a staunch CAFTA supporter, told the daily La Nación this week the pact should be ratified by December. Some legislators aren’t so sure, but in any case, the agreement must be ratified by March 2008 for Costa Rica to take part.

In the Guanacaste rice industry, where the bulk of national rice production takes place, the controversial trade pact is sowing uncertainty and fear.

Tariffs, safeguards and a domestic buying policy protect Costa Rica’s rice production industry, which according to the National Rice Corporation (CONARROZ) employs approximately 60,000 workers in production, logistics, fumigation, retail and more.

CONARROZ says 60% of rice consumed in Costa Rica is produced here. The rest is imported, mostly from the world’s third-largest rice exporter, the United States.

For years, the United States has put billions of dollars into the pockets of its rice producers to keep the industry competitive, drawing fire from the leading trade nation’s trade partners. International activist group Oxfam reported that the United States spends $1.2 billion a year to support its rice industry.

Agricultural subsidies in developed countries was a topic of heated debate during the Doha Round talks, and was ultimately the reason the talks failed last month (TT, Aug. 4).

In addition to being subsidized, the U.S. rice industry works with better technology, seeds and infrastructure.

“I’m not afraid of any U.S. farmers. But look at the advantages they have,” Bolaños told The Tico Times. “If they come here and work my land with my prehistoric seeds and old equipment, then we’ll talk about competition.”

CONARROZ, a leading CAFTA opponent, represents Costa Rica’s 1,100 rice growers and processors.

Critics and CAFTA supporters, including the Association of Free Consumers, say the organization has failed to help develop national rice production in any meaningful way, and call the association a “subsidized rice monopoly” benefiting a few wealthy rice growers and hurting rice consumers, many who live in poverty.

“It’s not important that we produce rice, but that all people can afford rice,” said association president Juan Ricardo Fernández.

However, rice growers claim it’s a security issue.

CONARROZ president Oscar Campos said recent terrorist attacks and natural disasters in the United States have demonstrated how, if the United States becomes the hand that feeds Costa Rica, the country’s basic necessities will depend on the whims of U.S. politics. He said Costa Rica experienced a temporary “crisis” after Hurricane Katrina because the U.S. wouldn’t export any rice.

Fernández said having access to rice is not a problem because “rice is everywhere,” and Costa Rica produces other food items such as fruits on which it could depend during crises.

Pat O’Brien, an economist for the American Farm Bureau Association, a powerful U.S. lobby, said that if CAFTA were ratified, the Costa Rican economy would go through a transition. During this transition, subsistence farmers and small commercial farmers would feel the pinch and some industries like rice production would die off.

In the long run, though, producers will be better off, he said.

“It’s a painful transition … especially for Costa Rican producers who depend on rice as income and a food staple,” O’Brien said, adding that in five or 10 years, producers will have learned to apply their skills to viable industries such as sugarcane or melon production.

This week, Production Minister Alfredo Volio urged restructuring of the agricultural industry to prepare such “sensitive” agricultural sectors as rice for CAFTA implementation.

On a recent hot afternoon, the sweaty, dirt-caked Bolaños drove his dilapidated pink jeep down farm roads showing off Guanacaste’s rice fields. He is slated to become a CONARROZ board member representing the Chorotega region of Guanacaste, a dry, sunny grid of hills and valleys quenched by irrigation canals fed by the massive Lake Arenal reservoir to the northeast.

In this region, where about 60% of domestically produced rice is grown, the increasingly polemic CAFTA debate is tangible.

“The feeling against the United States is going to grow … I’ve talked to a lot of people who are harboring malevolence,” Bolaños said.