Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Rural out-migration and smallholder agriculture in the southern Ecuadorian Andes

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Population and Environment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study investigates the consequences of out-migration and migrant remittances for smallholder agriculture in a rural and environmentally marginal study area in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. Migration and remittances have the potential for transformative impacts on agriculture in origin areas of migration due to consequent declines in labor availability and increases in income, but previous studies have primarily found mixed and weak effects. This study provides additional insight by considering the gender and destination of migrants, key factors given gender norms influencing participation in agriculture, and the large gap in remittances sent by internal and international migrants. Building on recent methodological innovations, the study uses original household survey data and multivariate statistical models to examine the consequences of migration and remittances for multiple agricultural outcomes, including maize production, agrodiversity, female participation in agriculture, and the use of land, labor, and chemical inputs. Consistent with previous studies, the results indicate that migration and remittances have mixed and countervailing effects on smallholder agriculture. Specifically, out-migration has lost-labor effects that differ between men and women, and international remittances have investment-promotion effects that result in increased maize production. Together, the results highlight the resilience of smallholder agriculture in the face of dramatic demographic change.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The study area includes the cantons (roughly equivalent to US counties) of Calvas, Gonzanama, Espindola, Quilanga, and Sozoranga of Loja province.

  2. These values were derived the household survey data, described below, and excludes parcels not owned or managed by residents of the community.

  3. The questionnaire is available online at http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,1671.

  4. Only 6% of adults participated in temporary labor migration in 2005 according to the household survey. Additionally, agricultural activities and temporary migration are likely part of a joint decision-making process, and thus temporary migration is likely endogenous to the outcomes described below. This is a less of a concern for long-term out-migration, which on average occurred approximately 5 years prior to the survey and was thus unlikely to be part of a joint decision-making process with agricultural activities in the year of the survey.

  5. Missing data on the outcomes leads to smaller sample sizes in some cases. Additionally, to account for missing data for the predictors, 0.3% of predictor values were manually imputed based on other information in the questionnaire.

  6. One tarea, a local unit of area, is equal to 0.05 hectares.

  7. A quintal is unit of mass equal to 100 pounds or 45.4 kg.

  8. Improved varieties, which were planted by few households, were excluded from this measure.

  9. Parallel analyses conducted with ordinary least squares indicate that collinearity among the predictors is low and non-problematic.

  10. I also explored categorizing migrants by destination rather than gender as well as categorizing remittances by migrant gender rather than destination. The specification described provided the best fit.

  11. These household-level values differ from Table 3 due to the departure from many households of multiple migrants to the same destination type.

  12. Alternative models for censored outcomes include two-part models in which the dichotomous decision to participate and the continuous level of participation are modeled separately (Smith and Brame 2003), e.g., a logit model of participation followed by linear regression on the positive values. I instead elected to use the Tobit model for the following reasons: (1) the small number of censored or positive values for some outcomes, (2) an interest in overall effects on participation and the extent of participation, and (3) parsimony, given the large number of models. A comparison of the results reveals that the direction and significance of effects are largely consistent across the two approaches.

  13. Marginal effects were calculated using Stata’s mfx command for effects on the outcome conditional on the outcome being greater than zero.

  14. This model was selected over the negative binomial model because the additional parameter in negative binomial models was consistently non-significant.

  15. This value was calculated by multiplying the natural logarithm of the mean value of remittances per male international migrant ($552, including non-remitters) by the marginal effect of international remittances on maize production (Table 5), and adding to it the marginal effect from the departure of one male migrant (Table 5).

References

  • Abbott, J. (2005). Counting beans: Agrobiodiversity, indigeneity, and agrarian reform. The Professional Geographer, 57, 198–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, R. (2006). Remittances, poverty and investment in Guatemala. In Ç. Özden & M. Schiff (Eds.), International migration, remittances, and the brain drain (pp. 53–80). Washington, DC: World Bank.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agarwal, R., & Horowitz, A. (2002). Are international remittances altruism or insurance? Evidence from Guyana using multiple-migrant households. World Development, 30(11), 2033–2044.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amuedo-Dorantes, C., & Pozo, S. (2006). Remittances as insurance: Evidence from Mexican immigrants. Journal of Population Economics, 19, 227–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, D. (1992). Household composition, labor markets, and labor demand: Testing for separation in agricultural household models. Econometrica, 60, 287–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binford, L. (2003). Migrant remittances and (under)development in Mexico. Critique of Anthropology, 23(3), 305–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Black, R. (1993). Migration, return, and agricultural development in the Serra Do Alvao, Northern Portugal. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 41, 563–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brookfield, H. (2001). Exploring agrodiversity. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, P. (1987). Population growth and the disappearance of reciprocal labor in a highland Peruvian community. Research in Economic Anthropology, 8, 225–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, L., Brea, J., & Goetz, A. (1988). Policy aspects of development and individual mobility: Migration and circulation from Ecuador’s rural sierra. Economic Geography, 64, 147–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, L., & Sierra, R. (1994). Frontier migration as a multi-stage phenomenon reflecting the interplay of macroforces and local conditions: The Ecuador Amazon. Papers in Regional Science, 73, 267–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brownrigg, L. (1981). Economic and ecological strategies of Lojano migrants to El Oro. In N. Whitten (Ed.), Cultural transformation and ethnicity in modern Ecuador (pp. 303–326). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brush, S. (2004). Farmers’ bounty: Locating crop diversity in the contemporary world. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bydekerke, L., Van Ranst, E., Vanmechelen, L., & Groenemans, R. (1998). Land suitability assessment for cherimoya in southern Ecuador using expert knowledge and GIS. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 69, 89–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Haas, H. (2006). Migration, remittances and regional development in Southern Morocco. Geoforum, 37, 565–580.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De la Briere, B., Sadoulet, E., de Janvry, A., & Lambert, S. (2002). The roles of destination, gender, and household composition in explaining remittances: An analysis for the Dominican Sierra. Journal of Development Economics, 68, 309–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deere, C. (2005). The feminization of agriculture? Economic restructuring in rural Latin America. Occasional Paper 1, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

  • Durand, J., Parrado, E., & Massey, D. (1996). Migradollars and development: A reconsideration of the Mexican case. International Migration Review, 30, 423–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, F. (2000). Rural livelihoods and diversity in developing countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Entwisle, B., & Tong, Y. (2005). The impact of migration and remittances on households in rural Thailand. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, Philadelphia, March 31–April 2.

  • Foster, A., & Rosenzweig, M. (1995). Learning by doing and learning from others: Human capital and technical change in agriculture. The Journal of Political Economy, 103, 1176–1209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, D. (2004). The economics of agricultural labor exchange with evidence from Indonesia. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Maryland, College Park, MA.

  • Gratton, B. (2007). Ecuadorians in the United States and Spain: History, gender and niche formation. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33, 581–599.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, C. (2008). Out-migration and rural livelihoods in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. Doctoral dissertation for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,1671.

  • Gray, C. (2009). Environment, land and rural out-migration in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. World Development, 37, 457–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, C., Bilsborrow, R., Bremner, J., & Holt, F. (2008). Indigenous land use in the Ecuadorian Amazon: A cross-cultural and multilevel analysis. Human Ecology, 36, 97–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grosh, M., & Glewwe, P. (2000). Designing household survey questionnaires for developing countries: Lessons from 15 years of the living standards measurement study. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guillet, D. (1980). Reciprocal labor and peripheral capitalism in the Central Andes. Ethnology, 19, 151–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hull, J. (2007). Migration, remittances, and monetization of farm labor in subsistence sending areas. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 16, 451–484.

    Google Scholar 

  • IADB. (2006). Remittances 2005: Promoting financial democracy. Inter-American Development Bank.

  • INEC. (2003). Sistema integrado de consultas a los censos nacionales. www.inec.gov.ec. National Census and Statistical Institute of Ecuador.

  • Jokisch, B. (2002). Migration and agricultural change: The case of smallholder agriculture in highland Ecuador. Human Ecology, 30, 523–550.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jokisch, B., & Pribilsky, J. (2002). The panic to leave: Economic crisis and the ‘new emigration’ from Ecuador. International Migration Review, 40, 75–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, E. (2003). The changing role of women in the rural economies of Latin America. In B. Davis (Ed.), Current and emerging issues for economic analysis and policy research. Volume I: Latin America and the Caribbean (pp. 31–66). Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization.

    Google Scholar 

  • Long, J. (1997). Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • López, E., Boccoa, G., Mendoza, M., Velázquez, A., & Aguirre-Rivera, J. (2006). Peasant emigration and land-use change at the watershed level: A GIS-based approach in Central Mexico. Agricultural Systems, 90, 62–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lucas, R. (1987). Emigration to South Africa’s mines. The American Economic Review, 77, 313–330.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, D., & Zenteno, R. (2000). A validation of the ethnosurvey: The case of Mexico-U.S. migration. International Migration Review, 34(3), 766–793.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, N., Carletto, G., Davis, B., & Maltsoglou, I. (2006). Assessing the impact of massive out-migration on agriculture. Working Paper No 06-14, Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

  • Mendola, M. (2008). Migration and technological change in rural households: Complements or substitutes? Journal of Development Economics, 85, 150–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mora, J. (2005). The impact of migration and remittances on distribution and sources of income: The Mexican rural case. United Nations Expert Group Meeting on International Migration and Development, New York, July 6–8.

  • Muller, D., & Sikor, T. (2006). Effects of postsocialist reforms on land cover and land use in South-Eastern Albania. Applied Geography, 26, 175–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Netting, R. (1993). Smallholders, householders: Farm families and the ecology of intensive, sustainable agriculture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • OAS. (1992). Plan integral de desarrollo de los recursos hídricos de la provincia de Loja. www.oas.org/dsd/publications/Unit/oea02s/begin.htm. Organization of American States.

  • Perz, S. (2007). Grand theory and context-specificity in the study of forest dynamics: Forest transition theory and other directions. The Professional Geographer, 59, 105–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pfeiffer, L., & Taylor, J. (2007). Gender and the impacts of international migration: Evidence from rural Mexico. In A. Morrison, M. Schiff, & M. Sjöblom (Eds.), The international migration of women (pp. 99–123). Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Preston, D., Macklin, M., & Warburton, J. (1997). Fewer people, less erosion: The twentieth century in southern Bolivia. The Geographical Journal, 163, 198–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Preston, D., & Taveras, G. (1980). Changes in land tenure and land distribution as a result of rural emigration in Highland Ecuador. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 71, 98–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramírez-Gallegos, F., & Ramírez, J. (2005). La estampida migratoria ecuatoriana: Crisis, redes transnacionales y repertorios de acción migratoria. Quito, Ecuador: Abya Yala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reardon, T., Berdegué, J., & Escobar, G. (2001). Rural nonfarm employment and incomes in Latin America: Overview and policy implications. World Development, 29, 395–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reichert, J. (1981). The migrant syndrome: Seasonal US wage labor and rural development in central Mexico. Human Organization, 40, 56–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rigg, J. (2006). Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty: Rethinking the links in the Rural South. World Development, 34, 180–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudel, T., Coomes, O., Moran, E., Achard, F., Angelsen, A., Xu, J., et al. (2005). Forest transitions: Towards a global understanding of land use change. Global Environmental Change Part A, 15, 23–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudel, T., Perez-Lugo, M., & Zichal, H. (2000). When fields revert to forests: Development and spontaneous reforestation in post-war Puerto Rico. The Professional Geographer, 52, 386–397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sana, M. (2008). Growth of migrant remittances from the United States to Mexico, 1990–2004. Social Forces, 86, 995–1025.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sana, M., & Massey, D. (2005). Household composition, family migration, and community context: Migrant remittances in four countries. Social Science Quarterly, 86, 509–528.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D., & Brame, R. (2003). Tobit models in social science research: Some limitations and a more general alternative. Sociological Methods and Research, 31, 364–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stark, O., & Bloom, D. (1985). The new economics of labor migration. American Economic Review, 75, 173–178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, J., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Massey, D., & Pellegrino, A. (1996). International migration and community development. Population Index, 62, 397–418.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, J., & Dyer, G. (2006). Migration and the sending economy: A disaggregated rural economy wide analysis. Working Paper 06-002, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis.

  • Taylor, M., Moran-Taylor, M., & Ruiz, D. (2006). Land, ethnic, and gender change: Transnational migration and its effects on Guatemalan lives and landscapes. Geoforum, 37, 41–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, J., Rozelle, S., & De Brauw, A. (2003). Migration and incomes in source communities: A new economics of migration perspective from China. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 52, 75–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Dusen, M., & Taylor, J. (2005). Missing markets and crop diversity: Evidence from Mexico. Environment and Development Economics, 10, 513–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, R., Perz, S., Caldas, M., & Silva, L. (2002). Land use and land cover change in forest frontiers: The role of household life cycles. International Regional Science Review, 25, 169–199.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, R., Palloni, A., & Soldo, B. (2007). Wealth in middle and old age in Mexico: The role of international migration. International Migration Review, 41, 127–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wouterse, F., & Taylor, J. (2008). Migration and income diversification: Evidence from Burkina Faso. World Development, 36, 625–640.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerer, K. (1993). Soil erosion and labor shortages in the Andes with special reference to Bolivia, 1953–1991: Implications for ‘conservation-with-development’. World Development, 21, 1659–1675.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Funding for this research was provided by a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a Research Residency grant from the Carolina Population Center (CPC). The author was supported as a doctoral student by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and by an NSF grant to the CPC for graduate training in population-environment research. I thank Richard Bilsborrow and Thomas Whitmore for providing advice throughout the project and also members of my dissertation committee and the anonymous reviewers for their comments. For making the fieldwork possible I am indebted to the participating communities, the field staff, and the Center for Population and Social Development Studies in Quito.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University Square, CB# 8120, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516-2524, USA

    Clark L. Gray

Authors
  1. Clark L. Gray
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Clark L. Gray.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gray, C.L. Rural out-migration and smallholder agriculture in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. Popul Environ 30, 193–217 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-009-0081-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-009-0081-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation