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The article analyses the livelihood of peasant farmers in the rural area of three parishes in the Paute basin in Ecuador. First, the article presents the gathered empirical data of the study sites, respectively the Pichacay in the Santa Ana parish, Caldera in the Javier Loyola parish, and Llavircay in the Rivera parish. Applying the Chayanovian and van der Ploeg interpretation frames, three types of peasant households could be distinguished, based upon their specific organizational forms of producing and reproducing their livelihoods. The article concludes that a more in-depth analysis is needed in the peasant’s art of farming, particularly in their core balance of being conditioned by and linked to as well as resistant to the capitalist economy.