Sustainability of Smallholder Livelihoods in the Ecuadorian Highlands: A Comparison of Agroforestry and Conventional Agriculture Systems in the Indigenous Territory of Kayambi People

Abstract

Smallholder farming constitutes an important but marginalized sector, responsible for most of the world's agricultural production. This has a significant influence in the land use/cover change process and agrobiodiversity conservation, especially in mountainous regions of the developing world. Thus, the maintenance of sustainable smallholder farming systems represents a key condition for sustainable land management and to safeguard the livelihoods of millions of rural households. This study uses a combination of biophysical and socioeconomic data based on household interviews to compare 30 highland agroforestry systems and 30 conventional agriculture systems, to determine which system provides better conditions to support sustainable livelihoods for smallholder farmers. The interview data is based mainly on the perceptions of Kayambi indigenous farmers who use these farming systems to support their livelihoods. Independent-Samples t Test and descriptive statistics were applied to analyse the data from 60 farms. The results indicate that agroforestry systems contain greater agrobiodiversity; more diversified livelihoods; better land tenure security and household income; more diversified irrigation sources and less dependency on rainfall than conventional systems. These findings highlight the role of agroforestry systems in supporting sustainable livelihoods of smallholder farmers in mountainous areas.

Are Small Farms Sustainable by Nature?—Review of an Ongoing Misunderstanding in Agroecology

“…A maximum property of 2 ha is a common threshold for the distinction between small and larger farms [10,[14][15][16]. Seldom, 5 ha is the critical value [2,17]. A second definition of small farms refers to farm ownership.…”

“…A second definition of small farms refers to farm ownership. Accordingly, small farms are family-operated (sometimes including more than one household) with limited or no hired labour [10,14,17,18]. In high-income countries, the generated value is also a common indicator: for example, the USDA defines small farms as farms with less than $100,000 in value of annual production and distinguishes them from "non-commercial" farms which make less than $50,000 per year [19].…”

“…The term family farm is a common synonym for small farm [4,10,12,15,17,19,[21][22][23][24], although it can also exclusively refer to the farm ownership (which then includes family-run larger-scale farms). The operator of a small farm is called a small farmern [4,20,[25][26][27], smallholder [2,10,[12][13][14]21,28], or family farmer [14].…”

“…The operator of a small farm is called a small farmern [4,20,[25][26][27], smallholder [2,10,[12][13][14]21,28], or family farmer [14]. Peasant (or peasant farmer) commonly refers to the same group of farm owners but emphasizes subsistent (often indigenous) producers in developing countries [2,4,17,22,28,29], characterized by a strong relationship with the local culture and environment, an empiric rather than academic knowledge about farm management, and little use of external inputs [1].…”

Contrasting Species Diversity and Values in Home Gardens and Traditional Parkland Agroforestry Systems in Ethiopian Sub-Humid Lowlands

“…The removal or destruction of forest cover resulted in significant losses of tropical and global biodiversity, owing to the destruction of forest-based habitats and species [2]. Tree cover continuously decreased in the tropics for the past 17 years [3]. Deforestation is primarily a concern for developing countries in the tropics [4,5], where significant agricultural demand for land is often coupled with a lack of economic incentives for forest Study of the biological structure of agroforestry systems as indicated by the number and abundance of species provides insights into the relative importance of different plant species, and helps identify important elements of plant diversity, such as threatened and economically important species, to increase their abundance and productivity [38,39] Biodiversity measures (i.e., species diversity and species richness) are widely used as indicators of ecosystem health and human influence on ecological systems [38,40], and are factored in the monitoring of the status of agroforests and in successful conservation management [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48].…”