El sector agrario del Ecuador: incertidumbres (riesgos) ante la globalización

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Abstract

El artículo ofrece una visión de conjunto del sector agrario ecuatoriano. Incorpora, por una parte, el escenario esbozado por las conflictivas coyunturas políticas y económicas por las que ha atravesado el país. Por otra, el rechazo a cualquier imagen de inmovilismo o de homogeneización de la agricultura y/o del espacio rural ecuatoriano. Plantea asumir los retos y las incertidumbres que la globalización neoliberal impone al mundo agrario y al mundo rural del Ecuador, desde la perspectiva de las respuestas locales a los impactos derivados de procesos globales. ; The article offers a comprehensive vision of the Ecuadorian agrarian sector. On the one hand, it incorporates those conflicting political and economic conjunctures in which the country has been involved. On the other hand, it rejects any image of do-nothing policy or of homogenization of agriculture and/or the Ecuadorian rural space. In this sense, between 1980 and 2005, the Ecuadorian agrarian sector has drawn a trajectory marked by four facts: a) the consolidation of structures that continue being very unbalanced social and territorially, b) a less fast growth of the agricultural border, an increase of lands dedicated to grass, a reorientation of lands cultivated in benefit of exporting items or about urban massive demand, and a considerable increase of the cattle activity, c) a remarkable rise of the physical production that joins to a significant decrease of the prices perceived by the agriculturists in real terms, and d) a remarkable expansion of the agricultural exports, what is possible thanks to a sensible diminution of the unitary prices of the sold agro-alimentary goods to the outside.