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Abstract

The present study was carried out in the rural parishes of Pimocha, Febres-Cordero, La Unión and Caracol, in the Babahoyo canton, in the province of Los Ríos, Ecuador, during the year 2021, with the objective of characterizing and typifying the different systems of rice production present in those sectors. The producers sampled for this study were 96 of a total of 2,630 agricultural production units, to whom structured surveys were applied, considering sociocultural, economic and ecological factors. The data obtained were analyzed by univariate and multivariate methods (principal component analysis and cluster analysis) for the characterization and classification of the farms. The results show that the agricultural systems in the sectors analyzed are diverse, where the largest number of families are characterized by having a monthly net income greater than 394 US dollars and have access to inputs for agricultural use, but they have a higher incidence of diseases and apply products phytosanitary up to four times during the rice cultivation cycle. The cluster analysis indicated four groups of producers based on their similarities, with farmers in the third group, who are the majority and represent 35.4% of the total, having greater access to agricultural inputs and credit.