This article explores the territorial perception of peasant women belonging to the Community Women's Association of Tosagua (AMUCOMT) and the impacts of their organization on their daily lives, focusing on the transition from peanut management to maize collection and storage. Conducted between October 2022 and December 2023, the research used feminist methodologies such as body-territory mapping, talking maps, and structured interviews. The findings reveal that while peanut production initially fostered women's economic and collective autonomy, the shift toward maize collection and storage-driven by state support and agroindustry-triggered a process of "repatriarchalization". This process reinforced traditional gender roles, masculinized decision-making, and displaced women members from control overproduction. In response, agroecology emerges as an alternative for political and vital resistance, enabling women to reclaim food sovereignty, diversify their crops, and reaffirm their bodily and territorial autonomy.
This study analyzes how the agricultural sector in Manab & iacute;, a historical pillar of the economy, is shaped by the corporate food regime. Using descriptive statistics and a survey administered to 52 women members of the AMUCOMT organization, the study shows that the agricultural modernization has been unable to mitigate rural poverty, which reaches levels of up to 82% in the province. Although agricultural activity employs 84% of Manab & iacute;'s rural population, deep inequality persists, with 2% of productive units concentrating 26% of the land area. In the particular case of AMUCOMT maize producers, 90.7% of households are unable to meet their basic needs, while the women are compelled to accept technological packages in which 96% depend on chemical fertilizers. The article concludes that integration into agro-industrial chains does not guarantee social well-being, but rather transfers production risks to peasant families and increases their dependence on external inputs.
Agroecology-based conservation interventions are promoted to reconfigure society-nature relations in rural landscapes. However, there is little evidence on how these interventions influence valuations of nature in simplified agricultural landscapes where intensive production systems predominate. This study analyzes the impact of an agroecological intervention on plural valuations-instrumental, relational, and intrinsic-in communities in the Llanganates-Sangay Corridor in the Ecuadorian Andes. Using a comparative design involving farmers undergoing agroecological transition and conventional farmers, the study examines the value assemblages present in both groups. The results indicate that both groups share a wide repertoire of valuations of nature, with a predominance of instrumental values, especially under conventional management. Relational values are present in similar proportions, reflecting shared peasant cultural frameworks. However, intrinsic valuations and increased references to social relations linked to productive organization emerge in the agroecological group. The article concludes that, although these interventions do not immediately transform valuations of nature, they can generate socio-productive contexts in which relational and intrinsic values begin to emerge within peasant assemblages that remain largely instrumental in simplified agricultural landscapes.
This article analyzes public procurement policy in Ecuador as a potential market access channel for Peasant Family Farming (AFC) within the framework of the Popular and Solidarity Economy (EPS) and the principles of fair trade. Using a mixed-methods approach, it examines data from the 2020-2024 period on awarded amounts, EPS participation, and the characteristics of inclusion mechanisms within the National Public Procurement System. The results show that, despite the existence of procurement procedures aimed at inclusion-such as Inclusive Fairs, the Inclusive Dynamic Catalog, and Electronic Reverse Auctions for food products-the participation of the EPS remains limited and fluctuating, not exceeding 5% of the total amount awarded. This situation reveals a gap between the regulatory framework, which promotes equity and inclusion, and the implementation of the procurement system, which continues to prioritize criteria of economic efficiency and competition based on the lowest bid. The article identifies structural constraints that limit access for the EPS, particularly forAFC actors, including demanding technical and administrative requirements, procurement scales that are difficult for small producers to meet, and weak inter-institutional coordination. In this context, public procurement in Ecuador has not been consolidated as an effective market access mechanism aligned with fair trade principles, highlighting the need to revise its mechanisms in order to strengthen productive inclusion and territorial development.
In pre-Hispanic iconography from the south-central Andes, and particularly in the rock art of the Atacama Desert, various representations of animals generically identified as felines have been documented. However, their specific zoological identification has not previously been addressed from a visual perspective. To address this gap, the present study adopts a multidisciplinary perspective, presenting a compilation of images of felids in the parietal art of the Atacama region, including both records previously published by other researchers and new evidence documented by our team. These images were compared with the morphological characteristics of three species (Leopardus jacobita, L. garleppi, and L. geoffroyi) belonging to the group of small wild cats, or lesser cats, of South America, which are currently threatened by anthropogenic factors, such as habitat loss and fragmentation. This analysis allowed us to identify L. jacobita and L. geoffroyi in the rock art images based on the recognition of certain morphological traits and visual patterns distinctive to both species. This in turn made it possible to distinguish these them from the visual pattern associated with the puma, a larger felid. Furthermore, the evidence gathered on the presence of these species in Atacama rock art, together with various ethnographic records, points to the possible symbolic significance that these small felids may have held in the belief systems of the pre-Hispanic communities that inhabited the region.
