Sustainability of rice production systems located within the irrigation and drainage system Babahoyo, Ecuador

Abstract

An investigation was carried out in the Babahoyo canton, CEDEGE sector, Los Ríos province, with the aim of establishing the values ​​of the environmental, economic and social indicators, which determine the levels of sustainability in the irrigated rice production system. The physical aspects of the soils, weed cover, weed interference with the crop and herbicidal activity were evaluated at 25 days after application (dda). For the analysis of the sustainability of the rice production system, we worked with a population of 5,133 UPAs (Agricultural Production Unit), from which a sample was extracted (n = 94). For the multicriteria analysis, three indicators and eight sub-indicators were identified to measure economic sustainability; four indicators and ten sub-indicators to measure environmental sustainability and five indicators with six sub-indicators for the social dimension. The analysis of the economic, ecological and sociocultural dimensions resulted in a General Sustainability Index of 1.76, which is why it is considered unsustainable. The CEDEGE producers reached the threshold value of 2.4 only in the sociocultural dimension. In the economic and ecological dimension, some causes of low sustainability were identified, such as little diversification for sale, few marketing channels, lack of financing sources, plant cover management, and weed interference.