Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo

NOVASINERGIA, 2020, Vol. 3, No. 2, junio-noviembre (108-123)

ISSN: 2631-2654

https://doi.org/10.37135/ns.01.06.09

Research Article

http://novasinergia.unach.edu.ec

Family milk production systems in the Ecuadorian Amazon

comparative performance of the different typologies

2

Programa de Economía Agrícola, Universidad Nacional Experimental de los Llanos Occidentales “Ezequiel Zamora”

UNELLEZ, Barinas, Venezuela, 5201

* Correspondence: jaordonezv@gmail.com

http://novasinergia.unach.edu.ec 109

individual agricultural production units (APU), with

access to relatively small, but not limited land areas,

with herds as large that can be managed by the

family labor force (Apollin & Eberhart 1999;

Wiggins et al., 2001) whose production is intended

for the market. Additionally, at least ideally, family

farming should be prosperous and provide the family

with autonomy in decision-making without barriers

to new producers' entry, particularly young ones

(Nehring, Gillespie, Sandretto, & Hallahan, 2009).

been identified as desirable for causing less

contamination than intensive systems, maintaining a

higher degree of animal and operator welfare

(Nehring et al. 2009), remaining competitive

(Ordóñez, 1998) and other attributes such as

resilience, flexibility or ability to adjust to changing

scenarios (Arriaga, Espinoza, Albarrán, & Castelán,

2000, cited by Wiggins et al., 2001), and to operate

with a frequent and continual source of cash. As

Espinoza (1999) points out, no other small-scale

Groenewald, & Keleman., 2012). The strategies to

adapt to such changes will result from the interaction

between said changes on the one hand and the

rationality, location, endowment, and structure of

resources and their management capacity, particular

to each producer, foreshadowing options strategies

very heterogeneous. Dixon, Gulliver, & Gibbon

(2001) cited by Hellin et al. (2012) present categories

of farmers' approaches to alleviate or escape poverty:

- Intensification, increasing productivity by applying

in exchange for dispersing attention to the operation.

- Expansion, expanding the endowment of available

resources such as the herd's size or deforesting new

areas, with adverse effects on the environment.

- Increase in non-farm income, temporarily or

permanently employed outside the farm, with

reduced attention to the operation, although the

revenue generated may be reinvested in agriculture

with a favorable effect, or finally

- Abandonment of agriculture, disregarding the farm to

public goods, in short, everything that affects the

availability and accessibility of resources (Osan,

2003); going through the structure and functioning of

the dairy circuit itself: lack of specific policies,

absence of international markets, insufficient agro-

industrial and commercial development, atomization

of production, inter-sectorial disarticulation to end up

in the production units themselves. It is evident then

that the corrective measures are not disciplinary, nor

are the solutions agronomic or financial. As Wiggins,

institutional development– are mainly the same as

encouraging agricultural development.

It is not enough to describe the different types of

farms. The diagnosis, as proposed by Apollin &

Eberhart (1999), must allow understanding of the

"why" of what is observed and identify the "cause-

effect" relationships from the perspective of

diversity, heterogeneity of strategies, and the

interests of the actors, allowing the formulation of

differentiated proposals for each type of producer

http://novasinergia.unach.edu.ec 110

they can be found. A block diagram of the

methodology applied is shown in figure 1. Stage I

was the object of a previous publication (Carrera et

al., 2017), as mentioned before. This paper

corresponds to Stage II.

located in the southeastern Ecuadorian Amazon,

limiting the north with Morona Santiago's province,

to the west with Loja's province, and with Peru to the

south and east. It has 10556 km

which includes a

unique mountainous orography that distinguishes it

from the rest of the Amazonian provinces.

For its part, Centinela del Condor is the smallest of

the cantons that make up the Zamora Chinchipe

province. The Development Plan and Territorial

Andean zone, it encompasses ecosystems of the sub-

tropic and tropic. The canton's climate is warm

humid, corresponding to a humid and humid forest,

both premontane and low montane. The proportion of

the economically active population dedicated to the

primary agricultural sector is 47.4%. The cantonal

area amounts to 262 km

2

, 53.3% dedicated to

agriculture, mainly occupied with natural and

cultivated pastures for cattle production. At the same

occupying 13062 ha. The bovine population amounts

to 7740 bovine units (UB) in 403 farms that maintain

an average of 0.80 UB/ha and 19 UB per farm, while

milk production averages 4.1 l/cow/day. Cattle are

managed by roping or free grazing. On the rope, each

animal is tied with a rope and moves once or twice a

day. Brachiaria decumbens Stapf., Setaria

sphacelata, and Axonopus scoparius (Flüggé) Kuhlm

predominate; few producers supply cutting-grass,

although sugar cane is used for forage purposes

Zamora Chinchipe more than 120 thousand

liters/month, just over 40% of the total milk produced

in its area of influence, Yantzaza, El Pangui and

Centinela del Condor cantons (FEDES, 2015). Milk

is paid weekly by individual transfer to each

supplier's account, depending on the volume of the

product registered. Suppliers bear the costs and risks

of transporting milk from the farm to the collection

center. The milk price received is US$ 0.42/l, that

established by Agreement No. 394 (Ministerio de

During that period, only 88 suppliers delivered milk

to ECOLAC, less than those existing in previous

years, with the consequent reduction in the volume of

milk collected. The reasons indicated point to

evasion of formal duties and displacement towards

informal markets, less demanding and without

sanitary control, or directly processing it. The

informal market collects milk for local processors at

a variable price between US$ 0.38 and 0.45/l

depending on location, season, and demand for

the unwillingness of the collection center

administrators and the providers' collective decision

in another limited the population participating in the

project to the Zumbi collection center, where 42

producers gathered their milk. Due to apprehension,

unfortunate previous experiences, or intentional or

involuntary ignorance of the required information,

only 16 providers completed the survey in April

2015. Refusal to complete the survey prevented the

respondents' systematic choice; all the providers who

estimate income components, and organize costs to

analyze farms' economic performance.

Each observation contemplates original variables

grouped into descriptors of identification, location,

production coefficients, resources, and costs,

segregated into fixed and variable, monetary and

non-monetary. The original 49 variables were

combined to calculate income, economic costs, gross

margin, the total cost per cow and herd, and costs

projected gross income per cow adds milk and cattle

sales, estimated at equilibrium. The variation of

inventory or advance or deferred sales is neutralized

by calculating the number of culled bulls and cows,

males, and heifers sold out of the herd at

variables and 27 observations.

The statistical analysis and edition process were

performed using the XLSTAT-Base3DPlot 2.0

complement of Excel 2007. Statistics of central

tendency and dispersion were obtained for the

variables. Variance analysis identified those variables

where the differences between the means of the

different clusters were statistically significant.

analysis in its application. The financial analysis only

considers the monetary income from sales, does not

account for opportunity costs. The economic analysis

considers the opportunity costs of the resources used

in production and the operating costs. The

Ecoanálisis form (Ordóñez & McGrann, 1992) was

applied to execute the economic analysis.

Costs are organized into six categories and classified

into monetary or cash and non-monetary. Non-

- Capital investment costs: include both the payment

As evidenced in table 2, the vast differences (P<0.05)

in the duration of the calving intervals and the

disparities (P<0.1) in lactation yield translate into a

notable advantage in milk production per cow per

year of the Innovator group (1686 ± 172) over the

surface available by UVR of the former, which is

electric fences and weed control even though it has a

superiority (P<0.01) of maintenance expenditure of

fences and paddocks (1791 ± 393). The reduced

amount for this concept of Pragmatic (49 ± 249) and

Conservative (130 ± 393) is because fences and

paddocks' maintenance is limited to manual control

of weeds. That amount is attributed to labor, being

higher the surface by Conservative farm. Although

the differences in C. ISO do not reach a level of

significance (P>0.1), the difference in the amount

used is notable, where Innovative (6063 ± 1 286)

Conservative was notably less (2644 ± 1672) than

1672), confirming the previous comment that a high

level of satisfaction induces not to apply more family

labor to increase income, even at the expense of not

milking all the lactating cows. The interest paid for

the purchase of livestock speaks of the affinity for

risk and genetic improvement expectations by

Innovative.

Table 4 reveals the differences in economic results

between typologies. The proportion of gross income

emphasis on meat production, as confirmed by the

early age of dismissing (12.8 ± 1.6 months). The

limited number of heifers sold is a consequence of a

low weaning percentage (68.4 ± 17.1%), a high

percentage of heifer mortality (5.19 ± 7%), and a

mentioned above. However, this higher income per

cow (1089 ± 120 US$) of Innovative is not reflected

in a higher gross margin/UVR (P>0.1), gross income

minus cash outflows/UVR (P>0.1), or Profit/UVR

(P>0.1). This behavior is a consequence of the higher

amount of cash destined for supplies and services,

mostly variable costs, and monetary costs of

Innovative, as mentioned above. Similar

consideration corresponds to the Profit per cow

without the differences between them reaching

http://novasinergia.unach.edu.ec 115

a

ab

a

ab

a

ab

b

a

b

Means in the same row with unequal letters are different P <0.1

The equilibrium point analysis expresses the price of

milk that the producer must receive to cover the

covers all the variable costs. On the other hand, the

averaged 0.02 ± 0.05 US$/l, and the differences

between groups also did not reach significant levels.

These figures confirm the producers' appreciation

when they indicate that they are "producing at cost,"

as they receive the benefit when they occasionally

necessary to cover the Total Cost averaged 0.79 ±

0.08 US$/l, 90 % higher than the amount paid to the

between groups did not reach significance levels

As table 5 examine, the implicit return to family

labor amounted to US$ 9908 ± 1344 per year per

farm, which remunerates an average of 402 ± 59.4

wages/year, equivalent to 24.6 ± 9.11 US$/day

on the family farm.

Said amount is equivalent to 1.15 times the minimum

2015 (Ministerio del Trabajo, 2015) that Regulates

Special Labor Relations in the Agricultural Sector,

basket. These results coincide with those of Willot

(2006), cited by Brassel & Hidalgo (2007), who, in

several parishes in the southern Andean region of

Ecuador, concludes that milk production is the only

activity that allows an agricultural income