The latest official statistics from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) indicate that in Ecuador there are 2,833,115 producers and workers in the agricultural sector.
Ten types of crops cover 94% of the agricultural area in Ecuador: Overproduction and non-compliance with support prices reduce profitability
Of these, 1,725,190 are producers or their families, 217,926 are permanent paid workers and 889,998 are occasional.
43% of them are between 41 and 60 years old, and 38% are 61 or older. 16% have an age between 20 and 40 years; and 0.26%, less than 20 years.
Most of the population that works the land (81%) is over 41 years of age.
Of the total number of producers and field workers, 54% finished primary school, 18% finished secondary school, 15% have no formal education and 13% have higher education.
Mario Kaviedes, Professor of Agronomy at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), indicates that a mechanism to retain the youngest rural producers in the countryside and prevent them from migrating is the necessary investment in infrastructure:
”One of collection so that in times when, for some reason, the price is low, it can be stored in adequate conditions and put on the market at the right time. The other alternative is to provide training in the economic part. One of the flaws is that the producer does not know for sure how much it costs to produce per unit area, per block, lot or hectare, whatever it is.”
The transfer of technology to detect disease pest problems with precision agriculture can help a crop leave more economic returns. “All this would give a greater vision of what should be planted and have more profit.”
The INEC reported that poverty affects 47.9% of the rural population in 2020. “The control of production for crops, such as rice or bananas, as a primary product-exporter becomes a challenge for the improvement of the livelihoods of small and medium-sized farmers,” says Adriana Santos, professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences of the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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