Migration and Agricultural Change: The Case of Smallholder Agriculture in Highland Ecuador

A large and growing number of agricultural households in less developed countries are also engaged in international migration. Thousands of farmers from the highland provinces of Cañar and Azuay, Ecuador, have immigrated to metropolitan New York, where they work in menial jobs and remit, as a group,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inHuman ecology : an interdisciplinary journal Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 523 - 550
Main Author Jokisch, Brad D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers 01.12.2002
Kluwer Academic Publishers Group
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Agricultural land
Agricultural Production
Agriculture
Agriculture, land tenure, rural space
America
Crop economics
Crops
Developed countries
Developing Countries
Economics
Ecuador
Emigration
Ethnology
Farmers
Households
Human migration
International migration
Labor Migration
Land Use
Latin American Cultural Groups
Migration
Morphological source materials
Pastures
United States of America
Urbanization
South America
Ecuador
Andes
USA, New York
Agricultural change
International migration
Small scale farming
Agricultural production
Remittance
Agriculture
Rural emigration
Land use
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0300-7839
1572-9915
DOI10.1023/a:1021198023769

Cover

More Information
Summary:A large and growing number of agricultural households in less developed countries are also engaged in international migration. Thousands of farmers from the highland provinces of Cañar and Azuay, Ecuador, have immigrated to metropolitan New York, where they work in menial jobs and remit, as a group, millions of dollars annually. This paper examines the effects of international migration on agricultural production and land-use in two regions of Cañar Province. An agricultural survey was administered in two communities to determine land-use and agricultural production of migrant and nonmigrant households. Contrary to most reports on the subject, migration has neither led to agricultural abandonment nor have remittances been dedicated to agricultural improvements. Semisubsistence agriculture remains an important riskaverse economic and cultural activity, but cultivation is a poor investment. A large investment in housing and land has converted much of the region into a peri-urban landscape of cultivated real estate.
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 14
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0300-7839
1572-9915
DOI:10.1023/a:1021198023769