Forty-five percent of the working Nicaraguans are engaged in agriculture. 80 percent export the food, and only 5 percent of the land is farmed when the potential figure is at least 30 percent. The lands most used for farming are the Pacific side of the country, mainly the part called Nicaragua's Depression, and also, in adjacent Pacific Highlands. There is also some agriculture in northern parts of the Central Highlands. Most land less people, or peasants, live on large estates, only in the Central Highlands, and on poor hillside plots.
Farmers do their own work on their land.
Most plants that are grown are coffee, cotton, sugar cane, rice, corn, beans, sorghum, and bananas. The animal that they raise the most is cattle. Industrially speaking, they have food processing, chemicals, metal products, textiles, clothing, oil refining, beverages, and foot wear. The most important commercial crops are coffee and cotton. Less the half of the coffee grown comes from the large estates in the Pacific Highlands, south of Managua.