Agriculture in Ecuador

oil-exporting economy. It is located right in the middle of the world where the equator line passes (Latitude 0°). It is a privileged area of the globe in terms of ecosystems, climate, land, temperature, and environmental conditions. Ecuador is a country with a vast natural wealth within its four regions, Coast, Andes, Amazon, and Galapagos Islands, each one different from the other. The capital city is Quito; the official currency of the Country is the US Dollar; the official language is Spanish; and, According to the Ecuadorian National Statistics and Censuses Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Cesnsos , 2019), by 2019 there are 19,257,925 Ecuadorians. Gross Domestic Product totaled 99.9 billion in 2016 and 104.3 billion in 2017.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the following numbers represent the summary of Ecuador’s area-related information:

Table 2 Ecuador’s Areas Information Ecuador's Areas Information

Country Area Land Area Agricultural Area Forest Area

25,637 24,836 5,516 12,469.15

(numbers in 1000 ha)

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2016

Since 1970, the main source of revenue of the country is petrol extraction and exportation.

Besides this, Ecuador still has an agricultural-based economy. In fact, agricultural activities still play an important role in the Ecuadorian economy. It represents almost 10% of the Gross Domestic Product for the last ten years, and even higher percentages in the previous years. In

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terms of harvested area, the main products are fruits with 45%, sugar cane with 37%, oilseeds with 9%, and cereals and other grains with 7%. In addition, other crops that are not extensive and require large amounts of land are coffee, potatoes, and flowers. Moreover, other important products produced un the Ecuadorian agriculture are rice, corn, and soybeans (Ludena & Wong, 2006).

The following table shows macroeconomic information regarding Ecuador, taken from The World Bank Group Organization (The World Bank, 2019). This table shows the Total GDP and the annual growth rate of the country; and, the share of the Agriculture activities from the Total GDP.¹

1 Find the definitions of the indicators used in this table in Appendix 1.

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Table 3 Ecuador - Macroeconomic Indicators Ecuador – Macroeconomic Indicators

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2.3.2. Use of Technology in the Ecuadorian Agriculture

The agricultural activities in Ecuador are recognized as part of the popular and solidarity-based economy, therefore, the agriculture industry is controlled by the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy, a public institution created in 2012 as an effort of the Ecuadorian Government to organize, supervise and control, among others, the agriculture activities under the cooperative model in the Country. The Superintendence, after its creation, started a recording process of all the organizations under its control. One of the purposes was to collect data and obtain the first real quantification and qualification of this kind of organizations because, until this time, there was not an official census data regarding the agricultural activity.

After the first semester of 2013, the Superintendence found its first numbers. The job that the Superintendence did was bigger than only the agricultural sector. Indeed, this process had two outcomes; first, to identify and record organizations, different than banks, working in financial activities; and second, no financial-related organization, that have economic activities.

Within this second group, there was a sub-division, according to the main activity: production, housing, services, and consumption (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018).

For purposes of this study, the author will focus on the results related to the no financial-related organizations with production activities. According to the Ecuadorian Organic Law of Popular and Solidarity Economy, the organizations with production activities are those in which their members personally dedicate themselves to licit productive activities, in a jointly managed and collective property society, such as agricultural, family orchards, fishing, craft, industrial, and textiles (Ley Orgánica de Economía Popular y Solidaria , 2014). Since this is the most accurate historical information that could be found, the author will isolate as much as possible the data regarding agriculture in order to expose the reality of Ecuador under this topic.

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Under this research, the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy found that by July 2013 Ecuador had 288 production organizations spread along with the country (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018). From this number, this Public Institution made sampling and took only the 14% of the total found population to find out data about specific indicators such as, among others, geographical distribution, administrative characteristics, ownership, educational level, gender equality, and information technology and communication. It is important to mention that the organizations taken for the sample are the biggest according to the income level, expenses, and taxes paid to the Internal Revenue Services of Ecuador (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018).

Regarding the information technology and communication, the results are quite revealing and give an idea of the lack of the use of technology throughout the whole production process chain of these organizations. The 95% of the analyzed organizations counted with at least one computer, taking into account that this is a necessary technological tool for daily activities of any organization. In addition, 87% of the institutions had internet access; and only 10% had a webpage (Aproximación a la caracterización de cooperativas de la Economía Popular y Solidaria, 2015).

Finally, in the annual magazine published in 2018 by the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy after having informed its administration about the fulfillment of its functions as a public entity during the previous year, it was written under the title “Challenges and Opportunities”, speaking about the future actions, to develop better management practices and research and development in technology to improve the expected results (Chimbo, Pilatásig,

& Ponce, 2018).

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution “Industry 4.0” brought the development of the Internet.

A powerful communication tool capable to cause a positive impact in as many industries as it is involved. Following this, as a consequence of the continuous research and development in technology, the Internet of Things made its appearance in the scene, revolutionizing and bursting the market. Although, the main favored of the use of the new trends of technology are those who historically had occupied a privileged position in terms of economic status, development, and growth. Therefore, nowadays in countries such as Ecuador, there are farmers who still do not have the opportunity to use and enjoy this technology in their daily activities simply because the knowledge and development of technology have not yet affected them.

With this factual situation in mind, this research applied “Secondary Data Collection Method”. In this study the author sought to identify, process, summarize and simplify useful information related to the application of the IoT in agriculture. In fact, there is vast information regarding the application of different experiments with successful results. In the first place, the objective was to identify the basic common problems that farmers experiment during the production processes, regardless the specific conditions of the country or the area where they are farming, so the smart system to be proposed can actually be applied everywhere. As a result, three main flaws were identified: irrigation problems, meteorological disasters, and pests’

threats.

After studying, and understanding the current situation of the Ecuadorian agriculture, the country where the IoT systems were proposed, the method performed in the development of this study, was a thorough reading and investigation of the problems related to agriculture