Population, Land Use Change, and the Changing Fortunes of Migrant Settler Households in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Richard Bilsborrow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Alisson F. Barbieri, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Bolier Torres-Navarrete, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

The Northern Ecuadorian Amazon, the principal region of migrant colonization in Ecuador since the 1970s, has experienced major changes in population and land use. The closing of the frontier (as major areas become protected and off limits and large areas are titled to indigenous populations) and continuing population growth have led to fragmentation of plots. This paper uses panel survey data on farm households for 1990-1999 to examine the implications for land use, increasing off-farm employment, and farm household incomes. We examine farm and off-farm incomes by size of plot, and estimate Gini coefficients for total household income as well as farm and off-farm incomes and land distribution. Decreasing household size from falling fertility and out-migration is found to be a major explanation for the lack of overall decline in household incomes despite plot fragmentation and falling market prices of major farm outputs.