Caracterización de la producción agrícola de una muestra de unidades productivas agropecuarias de la provincia de Manabí.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to characterize the agricultural production of a sample of agricultural units in the province of Manabí. For this purpose, stratified random sampling is designed on a universe population of 42.781 UPAs, extracting a representative sample of 381 observations. Among the main results, 69% of farms under five hectares were determined. The crop with the largest area is cocoa, on which a productive system with a weak technological level is raised. There is a 26% UPAs with access to irrigation, reduced level of application of herbicides and fertilizers, low level of agricultural mechanization, high labor consumption, high costs for transporting crops and other factors that reduce productivity and profitability. The 63% of the cacao growers register an economic return of up to $ 500 per hectare, which consolidates as a subsistence productive system