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This paper analyzes the socioeconomic factors influencing crop diversity and the likelihood of adopting monocropping as among rural households in the Esmeraldas province. With data of a household survey (n=226) conducted in October 2020 and by means of multivariate analysis techniques, it was possible determine that households with heads holding a university degree, receive non-farm income, are not recipients of the Bono de Desarrollo Humano and spend more on agricultural inputs have lower crop diversity in their farms. In terms of adoption of monocropping, households with higher endowments of education, that own larger farms, spend more on agricultural inputs and have been granted with credit are more likely to adopt monocropping as a production system. The implications of this findings for policy are discussed in the conclusion section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With data from a household survey covering migrant settlers and indigenous (Kichwa) communities in the Sumaco Biosphere Reserve (SBR), this study analyses the drivers of agricultural diversification/specialisation, focusing on the role of ethnicity and the livelihood strategies (LS) they follow. Data were collected using the Poverty and Environment Network methodology of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-PEN). In order to establish the drivers of agricultural diversification, the number of crops and the Shannon index of crops areas were used as the dependent variables in ordinary least square (OLS) models, while a multinomial logit model (MLM) was used to assess a household’s degree of diversification. The results of the OLS regression provides evidence supporting the notion that households, with Livestock-based and Wage-based livelihood strategies (LS) are less diversified and more specialized than households with Crop-based LS. Ethnicity has a positive and significant effect on agricultural diversification, with Kichwa farms more diversified than those of their migrant colonist counterparts. The results of the multinomial logit model (MLM) show that large Kichwa households, with Crop-based and Forest-based LS are more likely to adopt a highly diversified agricultural strategy. Based on these findings, we recommend a redirection of agricultural incentives, towards the adoption of diversified agricultural systems, as a strategy to promote more sustainable production systems in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]