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Remoteness as an inhibitor or a promotor for cocoa farm-level socioeconomic and environmental sustainability in Ecuador

Piette, Joséphine
(2022)

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Piette_82902000_2022.pdf
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Details

Supervisors
Lambin, Eric ; Tennhardt, Lina
Faculty
Faculté des sciences
Degree label
Master [120] en sciences géographiques, orientation générale, à finalité approfondie
Abstract
In a context where the cocoa sector is facing challenges in terms of socio-economic and environmental sustainability, many factors can influence the adoption of sustainable farming practices (SFP). Among these factors, remoteness is still little studied in this specific context. Therefore, this study aims to assess the influence of remoteness on the sustainability of cocoa farms in the northwestern part of Ecuador. In this region, a series of farms are required to sell their products to specific intermediaries in town in order to guarantee their participation in a sustainability program. However, their distance from this intermediary could have an impact on their level of socioeconomic and environmental sustainability, and this is what this study seeks to define. Firstly, a literature review defines the concept of remoteness and explores the links, highlighted in previous studies, between remoteness and socioeconomic sustainability indicators. The assessment of remoteness is then based on calculations of distance, weighted distance, travel time and weighted travel time. A Spearman correlation analysis is used to establish links between sustainability variables and remoteness. In addition, multivariate regression models are applied to measure the relationship between groups of predictors and SFPs. The objective is to show the influence of slope-weighted distance (representing here remoteness) on the adoption of these practices. The results of this study do not show strong relationships. However, they do shed light on influences at the level of certain sub-samples. Indeed, it was shown that some socioeconomic variables could be negatively impacted by remoteness in some groups of farms. On the other hand, remoteness may positively influenced some environmental sustainability variables. Weighted distance has not been demonstrated to have an impact on the adoption of SFPs.