Comprehensive evaluation of peri -urban horticultural production systems and producers' adoption of sustainable intensification strategies

The sustainable intensification of agricultural production systems is an objective proposed by several development agencies to guide the activity of research and technology transfer in agriculture. While this objective is true applies to all agricultural production systems, the production systems of urban and peri -urban agriculture (AUP) are particularly compatible with this objective given that these systems are inherently intensive and their influence extends directly beyond the productive system to the cities in which they are located significantly contributing to their sustainability. However, despite the importance of the AUP for the sustainability of cities, this activity is threatened by low levels of productive efficiency and limited adoption of appropriate production technologies that are not always directly extrapolated from rural production systems. The low adoption of production technologies in agriculture is a common problem for many production systems whose cause is to a large extent the lack of integration of the eventual beneficiaries of technology in the processes of (CO) generation and transfer, which generates programs of limited relevance and impact due to the ignorance of barriers socio-cultural and physical barriers for its adoption. In this project we propose to carry out an integral characterization of the horticultural production systems of the west periurbano and determine attitudes of the producers regarding the adoptability of a group of sustainable intensification strategies. This information will identify the critical areas where the University of Cuenca can concentrate research efforts in the area of horticulture as well as potential barriers to the adoption of new technologies that can be co-generated from the interaction between the University of Producers within their area of influence

14th RESEARCH PROJECT COMPETITION