Research Paper TRANSFORMATION OF THE AGRARIAN STRUCTURE IN ECUADOR WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO THE PROVINCE OF CHIMBORAZO Emil B. Haney, Jr. and Wava G. Haney LAND TENURE CENTER An Institute for Research and Education on Social Structure, Rural Institutions, Resource Use and Development Land Tenure Center I 300 University Avenue University of Wisconsin-Madison Research Paper U.S. ISSN 0084-081 S Madison, Wisconsin 53706 • TRANSFORMATION OF THE AGRARIAN STRUCTURE IN ECUADOR WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO THE PROVINCE OF CHIMBORAZO EmilE. Haney, Jr. and Wava G. Haney Currently, the authors are an Associate Professor of Business and Economics and an Associate Professor of Sociology, respectively, with the University of Wisconsin Centers at Baraboo and Richland Center. As Visiting Associate Professors with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Land-Tenure Center in 1982-1983, they were technical advisors to the Land Tenure Center • Ecuadorian Agrarian Reform Institute (IERAC) Estudio de la estructura agrarian del Ecuador Project.' The authors wish to thank members of the Ecuadorian study staff: Ernesto Oviedo, Gustavo Andrade, Carlos Tacuri, Jose Navas, Diego Medrano, Marcelo ,Renteria, Jorge Guzman, Francisco Lopez, Ruben Gangotena and Susana Romero; Rural Development Office of the u.s. Agency for International Development ssion in Ecuador, especially Vincent Cusumano and Fausto Maldonado~Edgardo Mascard! of CONACYT; several scholars and researchers with whom we discussed irious aspects of the Ecuadorian agrarian structure, especially, Osvaldo 3arsky, Manuel Chiriboga, Marco Jaramillo, Hugo Burgos, Jose Vicenta Zevallos, Bertha Garcia and Carlos Marchan; and most especially our colleagues at the Land Tenure Center --William C. Thiesenhusen, David Stanfield and the late A. Eugene Havens, for commentsC?n the stUdy design and draft manuscripts; Jane B. Knowles, for her editorial assistance; Marion Brown for his administrative assistance; Michael von Schneidermesser, Danny Powers and Jim Zimmerman for their assistance with data analysis; and Kathy Torok, Jane Dennis-Collins and Linda Smith for typing the manuscript. All views interpretations, recommendations and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily- those of any of the aforementioned individuals or supporting or cooperative organizations. Land Tenure Center LTC Research Paper 86 University of Wisconsin-Madison • January 1987 • • • • TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: RECENT CHANGES. AND TRENDS IN THE ECUADORIAN AGRARIAN STRUCTURE: SOME POLICY ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS I. The Pre-Reform Situation 1 II. The Reform Era 11 III. Other Factors in the Transformation of the Agrarian Structure 23 Bibliography 36 PART TWO: THE AGRARIAN STRUCTURE IN CHIMBORAZO: ITS EVOLUTION, CURRENT TRENDS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS • I. Major Geographical Features of the Provice 41 . II. Pre-Reform Agrarian Structure 50 III. Post-Reform Agrarian Structure 58 IV. Post-reform Agrarian Structure: Field Study Analysis 75 V. Trends in the Agrarian Structure of Chimborazo: Summary 124 VI. Possible Policy Responses to Structural Problems 126 VII. Some General Conclusions 130 • • • • • PART I RECENT CHANGES AND CURRENT TRENDS IN THE ECUADORIAN AGRARIAN STRUCTURE: SOME POLICY ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS The purpose of the first part of this paper is to: (1) sketch some of the salient features of the Ecuadorian agrarian structure prior to the official enactment and implementation of the country's Agrarian Reform Laws of 1964 and 1973; (2) summarize the contributions of the agrarian reform and the rather substantial changes that have occurred in the nation's agrarian structure during the past two decades; (3) discuss the major changes under way in the agrarian structure today and their policy implications for agrarian reform and other rural development strategies. This report does not provide a comprehensive analysis of either the impact of the Ecuadorian agrarian reform program or the evolution of the country's agrarian structure. These themes have been explored by a number of researchers recently (cf. Blankstein and Zuvekas 19,73; MAG 1976; Redclift 1978 ; Barskyet ale 1980; Handelman 1980; Peek 1980; Barsky et al., 1982; Chiriboga1982; Dublyet ale 1982; Sepulveda et ale 1982; Guerrero 1983; Zevallos 1984). They are also the focus of an applied research/training progra~ within the Instituto • Ecuatoriano de Reforma Agrariay Colonizacion (IERAC) which is presently con- ducting diagnostic and field studies in the provinces of Chimborazo and Manabi (IERAe 1981,1983). Rather, this paper is one attempt to point the way toward some policy responses to a growing number of structutal problems in Ecuador's agriculture. I. The Pre-Reform Situation When agrarian reform was official~y proclaimed as a hemispheric develop­ ment theme during the Punta del Este Conference in 1961, Ecuador had one of the most lopsided agrarian structures of any Latin American country. The 1964 CIDA study~ which provides an excellent benchmark analysis of Ecuador's land tenure situation prior to the implementation of the agrarian reform program, noted that: As a carryover from colonial feudalism, Ecuador has a skewed land tenure structure characterized by a concentration of a major part of the coun- try's agricultural land in the hands of a few. This existing para- dox between the 1atifundia and minifundia constitutes an adve'rse factor in the distribution of income coming from the land and results in the economic and social stagnation of a considerable percentage of the Ecua­ • dorianpopulation [eIDA 1965:16]. -2- A. Some Historical Background As in many other ·countries of the region, there had been some previous efforts by the state to modify the nation's archaic agrarian structure. Begin­ ning at the turn of the century under the leadership of President Eloy Alfaro, • the "Liberal Revolution" attempted to break the Church's dominion over vast landholdings in the sierra through the Ley de Manos Muertos(l907), which confiscated clerical property and rented it to .rich farmers. Later~ the system of concertaje (tied labor) and debt peonage was abolished through modifica­ tions in the Codigo Civil (1918). The result of these earlier nreforms" was that the state ended up controlling nearly one-fifth of the sierra lands under its Asistencia P6blica program, and the older 'feudal labor forms gave way to the more flexible semi-feudalistic huasipungaje system (in which tenants received usufruct rights to a subsistence plot of land in exchange for a work obligation to the hacienda and/or the hacendado's family) along with other assoaiated forms of service tenancy. Despite these legal changes, which fostered some increased mobility of the productive factors (primarily labor), the private haciendas in the sierra maintained a monopoly over the productive physical resources (land, water, technology, infrastructure, etc.) and thereby preserved--and in some cases even strengthened--their domination over the grow­ ing supply of campesinolabor through insecure tenancy arrangements (precarismo). Meanwhile, a parallel latifundia-minifundia complex had formed on the coast, especially with the cultivation of cacao and such other conunodities as sugar, coffee, and cattle and with the increased colonization of previously inaccessible areas by migrants from the densely settled highlands. New landlord-peasant relationships were established in the western piedmont and coastal plains, together with a powerful financial elite in Guayaquil (Guerrero 1980). To be sur~, this process was uneven, subject to booms and busts in the • international commodity marke.ts and to internal problems of crop diseases and other natural calamities. It was during the cacao bust of the 1920s and 1930s that rice production became firmly established in the Guayas basin (Redclift 1978:45J. The boom in this domestic commodity led to some serious social conflicts. Initially, the landlords tried to maintain traditional sharecropping arrangements with the small producers (flnqueros) and forced them into clearing newl?nds for rice production. Then during the 19405 and1950s,when world commodity prices improved for bananas, coffee, and cacao, many landlords attempted to reestab­ lish the plantation system. At times heavy-handed tactics were used tomanip­ ulate the peasants, and eventually these tactics contributed to the creation of peasant unions and generated pressures for agrarian reform legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. By the late 1950s, when the government started debating the country1s first agrarian reform law in earhest, many sierra landlords were already responding to growing external and interna1political pressures (especially peasant unrest and mobilization) (Guerrero 1983) and to new economic opportu­ nities (especially rising land prices, new technology, infrastructural improve­ ments, and increasing domestic demand for agricultural goods such as milk and other dairy products) (Barsky 1978). In some cases, they carried out • -3- "enclosures" by evicting peasants frorntheir'land. In other instances, they began~ellingoff land (often marginal areas located on steep mountain slopes) toiich peasants or granting small parcels of marginal land to their former • huasipungeros (Costales and Costales 1971). Many landlords held on to the best land (often alluvia~ valley floors) and began to intensify production in these areas through irrigation, improved pastures and dairy cattle, mechanization, and the use of some hired labor. This inverted land utilization pattern