The modernization of agricultural practices has been widespread in South America since the 1970s. The main practices implemented included the use of fertilizers and phytosanitary control based on synthetic elements, and agricultural mechanization for plowing. These activities affect soil quality and make soils more dependent on fertilizer imports throughout the continent. At the same time, the intensification of agricultural activity also increased CO₂ emissions in South America from less than 150 thousand gigagrams in 1977 to more than 280 thousand gigagrams in 2017, which translates into a greater burden of agriculture on the environment. Ecuador is one of the South American countries that share several social, climatic, and topographic characteristics common in the region; therefore, it is interesting to study the factors that help mitigate soil erosion processes resulting from agricultural activity. For this purpose, this study performs the estimation of a Tobit model with the information of the agricultural units with seasonal crops present in the Continuous Agricultural Surface and Production Survey of 2018. For the model approach, the number of soil conservation practices (SCP) in each farm is considered as the dependent variable. The estimation results show that there is a positive relationship between farms that are managed by women and the number of SCP implemented: the same result was obtained with respect to agricultural investment by local governments. However, it was found that farms with government technical assistance implemented fewer SCPs, which opens the debate on the importance of soil conservation in public policy.

中文翻译：

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支持采用土壤保持措施的因素：来自厄瓜多尔小农的证据

自 1970 年代以来，农业实践的现代化在南美洲已经普遍存在。实施的主要做法包括使用化肥和基于合成元素的植物检疫控制，以及用于耕作的农业机械化。这些活动影响土壤质量，使土壤更加依赖整个非洲大陆的化肥进口。同时，农业活动的集约化也增加了CO ₂南美洲的排放量从 1977 年的不到 15 万吉克增加到 2017 年的超过 28 万吉克，这转化为农业对环境的更大负担。厄瓜多尔是南美国家之一，具有该地区常见的几种社会、气候和地形特征；因此，研究有助于减轻农业活动导致的土壤侵蚀过程的因素是很有趣的。为此，本研究使用 2018 年连续农业地表和生产调查中存在季节性作物的农业单位信息对 Tobit 模型进行了估计。对于模型方法，土壤保持实践 (SCP) 的数量每个农场都被视为因变量。估计结果表明，女性管理的农场与实施 SCP 的数量之间存在正相关关系：地方政府的农业投资也获得了相同的结果。然而，发现有政府技术援助的农场实施的 SCP 较少，这引发了关于土壤保护在公共政策中的重要性的辩论。