Livelihood strategies and risk behavior of cacao producers in ecuador. Effects of national policies to support cacao farmers and specialty cacao landraces
- Autores: José Díaz Montenegro
- Directores de la Tesis: José María Gil Roig (dir. tes.), Elsa Varela Redondo (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2019
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Melania Salazar Ordóñez (presid.), Zein Kallas Calot (secret.), Macario Rodríguez Entrena (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Sostenibilidad por la Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya
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- Resumen
This thesis addresses the Ecuadorian cacao value chain through three interrelated chapters. Small producers linked to this chain face significant trade-offs between the two main available varieties for planting: the fine flavor variety (known as national cacao-CN) and the hybrid bulk variety (known as CCN-51), that is more productive and profitable but of lower quality than the former.
In the first chapter, the behavior and characteristics of cacao production are analyzed both at worldwide and Ecuadorian level. Ecuador is the sixth producer of cacao in the world and the first of the CN variety. The global cacao value chain is generally characterized by asymmetric power relationships with increasing control by a few leading companies that have the ability to decide how and where value is created and distributed throughout the global chain. The Ecuadorian cacao value chain is fairly fractionated at the producer level, where approximately 79% of the producers develop their activity in plots of less than 5 hectares, while the production of CCN-51 is growing in comparison with the CN. In fact, in 2017 72% of the cacao produced in Ecuador corresponds to CCN-51, a variety that is sown by 54% of the producers.
The second chapter identifies the livelihood strategies of small cacao producers located in the coastal region of the province of Guayas, Ecuador, where the two varieties of cacao are grown. For this purpose, theoretical frameworks for sustainable rural livelihood strategies and household livelihoods were adopted, and a detailed survey was conducted with a sample of188 households. Based on activity variables, four latent profiles of livelihood strategies were identified, which were related to the endowment of capital assets and income share variables. The results showed that there was no clear gap between the cultivation of CN and CCN-51, since 60% of the sampled households simultaneously cultivated both varieties. Furthermore, the lack of appropriate incentives could threaten the future cultivation of CN, since the National policy for CN rehabilitation has had little impact on the profiles most driven by cacao cultivation and that also have a lower endowment of assets.
Finally, the third study analyzes risk attitude, risk perceptions and risk management strategies of Ecuadorian cacao producers, as well as the relationships between these risk components. Adopting the same sample of respondents as in the previous chapter, experimental lotteries were applied to measure risk attitudes, while perceptions and strategies were measured by means of Likert scales. The theoretical model to determine the relationships among risk components was tested using variance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) with the partial least squares (PLS) algorithm. The results show that risk perceptions are more important than risk attitudes when deciding risk mitigation strategies. In addition, perceptions play a mediating role between farmers' risk attitudes and the risk management strategies adopted by them. These results advocate for policy measures oriented towards targeting farmers' perceptions of risk in order to implement successful risk management strategies.
