What does Ecuador produce and export?

The coastal lowlands between the Andes and the Pacific are hot, well watered by rivers coming off the mountains, and outside the hurricane belt that periodically flattens Central American plantations. That is the basis of the country's farm exports. Cacao grew there before the Spanish arrived, and the variety known as Nacional or arriba, prized for a floral aroma that most cocoa does not have, made Ecuador the largest exporter in the world in the decades before 1920. Witches' broom and frosty pod, two fungal diseases that spread through the groves in the 1920s, ended that. Recovery came through a high-yielding clone selected in the 1960s that produces several times as much per tree but without the aromatic profile, so the country ships two distinct products under one name. Ecuador produced 7.7% of the world's cocoa beans in 2024 (FAOSTAT) and held 16% of world cocoa export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), a far larger share of the trade than of the crop.

Bananas are the larger export and the same geography explains them. Plantations on the Guayas and El Oro plains produce all year without a marked season, and Ecuador took the leading position in the trade in the 1950s and 1960s as Panama disease and storms hit the older growing areas farther north. Ecuador grew 5.4% of the world's bananas in 2024 (FAOSTAT) and held 27% of world banana export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), the largest share of any country. Shrimp farmed in coastal ponds has grown into an export of comparable size, at 20% of world shrimp export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI).

The other economy is in the east. Crude oil was found in the Oriente basin at Lago Agrio in 1967, and a pipeline was cut over a pass of more than 4,000 meters to bring it to the Pacific, a route exposed to landslides and river erosion that have severed it repeatedly. The oil is heavy, the fields lie under rainforest and Indigenous territory, and the tension between drilling and conservation was put to a national vote in 2023. Oil palm planted in Esmeraldas and Santo Domingo made the country a significant regional supplier of palm oil until bud rot disease killed large areas of plantation.