The Dominican Republic has 1,667,913 hectares of grassland and imports 35% of its food at $2.5 billion per year.¹

The Dominican Republic is the largest Caribbean economy, with a GDP of $124.3 billion (2024) and the region's most diversified economic base spanning tourism, manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. Yet this economic giant imports $2.5 billion of food per year — roughly 35% of total consumption. The paradox is visible from space: 1.67 million hectares of grassland on a nation whose Cibao Valley is the most fertile agricultural region in the Caribbean.

The Cibao, stretching across Santiago, La Vega, Duarte, and Espaillat provinces, has been the breadbasket of Hispaniola since the Taino cultivated yuca and maize here before 1492. Spanish colonisation introduced sugar, coffee, and tobacco. By the 19th century, the Cibao was producing world-class organic cocoa — a tradition that survives today. The DR is the world's leading exporter of organic cocoa, with Fair Trade certification generating premium prices in European and North American markets.

The structural challenge is the tension between Free Trade Zones (FTZs) and agriculture. Since the 1990s, the DR has built 75+ industrial free trade zones employing 170,000+ workers in textiles, electronics, and cigars. These zones offer higher wages than farming, pulling labour from rural areas. The DR-CAFTA trade agreement (2007) further exposed Dominican agriculture to competition from US subsidised exports — rice from Arkansas undercuts Cibao rice farmers, even on their own fertile soils.

Tourism compounds the paradox. The DR welcomes 8 million visitors per year, creating enormous demand for fresh produce, seafood, and dairy — yet resort kitchens import most of their food from Miami. Meanwhile, the organic cocoa sector involves 40,000 Dominican families who supply 70% of global organic cocoa, proving that premium export agriculture works here. The DR also sits on 1.67 million hectares of idle grassland — the largest untapped reserve in the Caribbean after Guyana.

IDIAF (Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales) provides world-class agricultural research, and the DR has 24 agricultural experiment stations across the country. The institutional capacity exists. What has been missing is a satellite-based view of exactly where idle land sits and how to prioritise activation. With 1.67 million hectares of grassland and the largest agricultural research network in the Caribbean, the DR can transform from food importer to regional food producer — and feed its neighbour Haiti in the process.