Daniel Coq-Huelva

Background: Given the disruption of the global market, technological factors are impacting food supply chains (FSCs). As a result, traceability is emerging as a potential solution for faster and more secure decision-making within FSCs. Methods: This research aims to define a traceability model for a shrimp food supply chain (FSC) in Ecuador using structural equation modelling which insists not only on the main factors that explain its overall performance but also on the effects of the changes in agents’ behaviours. The research was conducted between March and December 2025. A 41-item questionnaire was used for data collection and was administered to 73 stakeholders. The information was reduced and assembled in five main factors. A structural equation model was applied to explore the impact of agents’ coordination, digital transformations, and customer satisfaction on the traceability of the shrimp FSC. Results: The results show that customer satisfaction is broadly affected by the improvements in chain traceability. Furthermore, the results demonstrate the relevance of coordination, digitalization, and traceability as key factors for strengthening the FSC’s performance. Conclusions: The results could contribute to Sustainable Development Goals 12 and 17 and be applicable to other agri-food chains.

Recent decades of substantial change in food production, transformation, and consumption have been systematized into the food regimes theory (FRT). Despite extensive research into global dynamics and the role of states in these activities, a deficit remains regarding to our understanding of long-term transformations in Latin American countries such as Ecuador and the interactive dynamics of FRT, state actions, elements of food sovereignty and dietary evolution. To diminish the gap, this study analyses the evolution of food relations in Ecuador during the second and third food regimes, which spanned from 1964 to 2007. The Ecuadorian agrarian model features very important export crops along with a relevant amount of food production for domestic markets. This article explores the complex evolution of this model and highlights the importance of considering the medium-term effects of dietary changes.

Purpose: Analyse the functioning of the Amazonian cocoa commodity chain works in Napo (Ecuador) and Tocache (Peru), focusing on the factors that shape its governance and attempts at its subversion through economic, social and environmental upgrading processes. Design/methodology/approach: The research was focused on the Amazon basin located in the provinces of Napo (Ecuador) and Tocache (Peru). A mixed qualitative and quantitative approach was used, considering not only the local scale but also the operation of the national and global cocoa commodity chain.Findings: Even though the geographical environment in which cocoa is cultivated provides a similar set of stimuli, the starting point and history of cocoa farming in the two countries are dissimilar. The social features of the farmers, the agricultural management systems, the associated income levels and the environmental effects are all very different. In addition, local agents are strongly influenced by unequal starting imbalances in price negotiations and distinct degrees of access to liquid assets. All these factors have different effects not only on the cocoa quality production but also in the socio-environmental effects. While in the Ecuadorian Amazon, cocoa acts as a factor in territorial conservation and indigenous empowerment, in the Peruvian Amazon, cocoa acts in favour of settlement processes and the expansion of the agricultural frontier. Social implications: This research highlights the potential of cocoa not only as an economic driver, but also as an instrument for reshaping territorial and environmental relations. A clearer understanding of how global commodity chains interact with local socio-environmental dynamics is essential for promoting more equitable and sustainable development in the Amazon region.Originality/value: This study examines a comparative study of two Latin-American countries Amazonian cocoa production systems, emphasizing socio-environmental features using a multiscale orientation focused on the interaction between the global, national and local scales.

Las cadenas de valor agroalimentarias han experimentado profundos cambios en los últimos años. Uno de los más relevantes es su creciente segmentación y la importancia estratégica de poseer sellos o certificados de calidad para acceder a nichos diferenciados de consumidores y obtener, así, precios premium. La presente investigación se ocupa de los factores que explican la obtención de estos certificados en el caso de las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYMES) en distintos eslabones de la cadena de valor del café de Honduras. Este análisis se ha basado en la estimación de un modelo econométrico de regresión logística en el que la variable dependiente es la obtención o no de certificación. Los hallazgos de este estudio muestran que los comerciantes individuales y las cooperativas presentan mayores probabilidades de obtener un certificado o sello de calidad. Asimismo, se observa que la disponibilidad de un certificado permite mejorar el acceso a los mercados nacional e internacional, además de incrementar el poder de negociación en la comercialización del café. El trabajo muestra igualmente que las MIPYMES que reciben estímulos para proteger el medio ambiente y apoyo en forma de asistencia técnica especializada por parte de instituciones nacionales e internacionales tienen más probabilidades de acceder a certificaciones de calidad.

En las siguientes líneas van a repasarse algunas aportaciones al pensamiento económico, distintivamente latinoamericanas, no solo porque nacen en América Latina sino también porque se orientan a explicar problemas específicamente latinoamericanos. Dentro de ellas vamos a destacar la Teoría de la Dependencia y las conceptualizaciones sobre Extractivismo y Buen Vivir, exponiendo resumidamente sus preocupaciones y el contenido de sus aportaciones. Como se verá, en los tres casos existe una amplia genealogía de contribuciones diversas que confluyen sobre una serie de temáticas y perspectivas comunes. Se trata, además, de desarrollos teóricos que, en todos los casos, tienen un fuerte carácter realista, basados en la observación de una serie de problemáticas identificadas sobre la base de aproximaciones histórico-estructurales. Sobre esta base se construyen aportaciones que, de una u otra forma, suponen una enmienda a las formas dominantes de comprensión y gestión de la economía. En este sentido, resultan una de las expresiones más destacadas de la heterodoxia económica en el último siglo. En este contexto, no solo proponen otras formas de entender las cosas, sino también otros modos de interaccionar con la realidad, es decir, otras políticas.

This article analyses the role of conventions, compromises and even violence in the intricate bio-social construction process of cocoa cultivation in the province of Tocache in the Peruvian Amazonia. This article discusses the different phases of the settlement process and its social, institutional and environmental bases. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the dramatic abandonment of coca cultivation and its replacement by alternative crops such as cocoa. Emphasis is placed on the centrality of agents’ normative coherence and coordination. For over 50 years, the civic–market compromise has framed agents’ discourses and actions, although it has sometimes been ostensibly distorted. This framing effect has also occurred in circumstances with considerable recourse to violence and armed conflict. Thus, this article focuses not only on justification processes but also on what happens ‘after justification’ and on how violent situations can coexist with discursive constructions with a relevant normative element.

The growth of small-scale Peruvian farmers is highly dependent on cocoa factor productivity. Agricultural extension programs can help to improve farm productivity using available resources. Thus, the objective of this study is to estimate the productivity of Peruvian cocoa farming and identify if frequent technical assistance impacts on farmers’ technical efficiency. The data came from a survey of 379 cocoa farmers in Tocache, San Martin (177 producers who sell through intermediaries and 202 who are cooperative members), conducted between January and June 2015. This article is supported by the interaction of two associated techniques: the production function and the technical efficiency technique based on stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). The key findings were that the estimated coefficients for labor, capital, land and fertilizer were positive to cocoa production. Our outcomes also show there is a (marginally) significant relationship between technical assistance and technical efficiency (p-value<10%). There is also a positive relationship between efficiency and other socioeconomic characteristics of being a male, having experience in cocoa cultivation and practicing non-diversification in other crops. Policymakers could consider these results to improve farm management systems and, therefore, the competitiveness of the cocoa plantations in the Peruvian Amazonia.

Urban sprawl and its economic, social, and environmental consequences are central issues for approaching more sustainable forms of life and production. This review provides a broad theoretical exploration of the main features of urban sprawl but also of sustainable urban policies in Western Europe and North America. Urban sprawl can be observed in both continents, as the search for higher standards of economic, social, and environmental sustainability is also an essential feature of urban governance in the last years. Urban sprawl has been slightly weaker in Western Europe, as its are cities generally more compact. Moreover, in Western Europe, urban sprawl has sometimes been confronted with ex-ante preventive policies. However, in North America, urban sprawl from the 1950s has been an essential element of the social ordering and, thus, of the American way of life. In both cases, urban sprawl has generated successive rounds of accumulation of built capital, which is currently managed in sustainable ways essentially through ex-post and palliative measures, that is, trying to “sustain what is unsustainable”. In other words, the idea is to make urban sprawl more sustainable but without altering its main morphological elements.

In recent decades, urban processes have experienced deep transformations. One of them has been the growing importance of urban sprawl. This article reviews its main features and the policies related to the paradigm of sustainability in three Latin American Megalopolises: Mexico City, Lima, and Santiago de Chile. For this purpose, we have carried out an extensive compilation of the existing academic literature. Urban sprawl in those cities cannot be understood without considering the rising housing needs of popular classes, usually addressed through the sequence settlement-parceling-building-urbanization. Simultaneously high-income groups tend to create separated and gated commodities and there is increasing spatial mobility of the middle classes. Those processes tend to generate highly segregated and increasingly patched metropolitan areas. Sustainability is framed on models of urban governance based on ecological modernization. In this context, three main sustainable policies are analyzed: water supply, green areas provision, and transport. Conclusions stress: (1) Deep changes experienced and the path-dependent element observed in the social construction of sustainability (2) Consolidation of a model of socially segregated and ecologically differentiated urban polycentrism (3) Relevance of the different megalopolises as niches of experimentation and innovation in the construction of specific forms of sustainable transition.