Archaïsme ou modernité en haute vallée andine du Cañar (Équateur) : de quoi la petite exploitation familiale est-elle le reflet ?

If modernity meant a type of specialized agriculture, which is moto-mechanized and chemicalized, generating few jobs per surface unit but high value added per work unit, then small family farms in the Andean south of Ecuador, known as minifundias, with their manual tools and their polyculture based on the principles of agroecology would assuredly be characteristically archaic. Nonetheless, when other dimensions than work productivity are taken into account, this form of agriculture cannot but be viewed differently. It suddenly appears much less archaic than some may have thought since it carries the answers to many challenges (whether they be social, economic, or environmental) which Ecuadorian society imputes to its rural areas today.