There is a worsening of food insecurity among both urban and rural households in the provinces of Guayas (except Guayaquil) and Los Ríos, but more markedly so among rural households. Also among female-headed households and among those located in the highest poverty quintiles. The effects of the pandemic, but also The increase in the prices of production inputs and the cost of food, together with the political crisis and the worsening of public insecurity in Ecuador, are some of the factors that have led to this situation.

After three years of work, the project Siembra Desarrollo: Smallholder agriculture and food resilient to COVID-19, implemented by Rimisp – Latin American Center for Rural Development, in the provinces of Guayas and Los Ríos, presents the results of its studies on the effects of the pandemic on food security and how households have coped with the crisis, as well as the consequences of subsequent shocks, which continue to affect food security in the selected territories.

Within this framework, the Food Security and Food Survey (ESAA) was applied to 2,476 households in the aforementioned provinces. These were selected on the basis of vulnerability criteria, the importance of family agriculture as food providers and the incidence of COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. The survey was conducted by telephone and included urban and rural households, according to a random sampling, with provincial representativeness.

The ESAA was developed in two rounds. The first, between December 2020 and January 2021, and the second between November and December 2022, in order to observe the evolution of household conditions since the health emergency. However, in the years 2021 and 2022, other economic shocks were added, such as the increase in the prices of inputs for production and food prices, together with the political crisis and the worsening of citizen insecurity, recorded in Ecuador during 2022.

ESSA’s main findings

– The accumulation of shocks has most strongly affected the surveyed households. The results reveal that the food insecurity[1] of households in the two territories increased in the second round of the survey (2022), and more pronounced in the case of Los Ríos. Food insecurity, moderate to severe, increased from 28.9% to 47.4% of households in Guayas (except Guayaquil), and from 30.9% to 63.3% in Los Ríos, doubling in the latter case. The higher levels of poverty in this province, relative to those of Guayas, could explain the greater vulnerability of these households to the multiple shocks experienced.

– In the first round (2020), severe food insecurity, which implies that the household has experienced hunger, was lower in rural areas than in urban areas of the two territories. In that year, for the province of Los Ríos, moderate food insecurity, in which households are forced to reduce the quantity and/or quality of the food they consume due to lack of money or other resources, was also lower in rural areas than in urban areas. For the second survey, however, the opposite is observed. Although moderate and severe food insecurity grew in urban and rural areas, for both territories the new percentages are now notably higher in rural areas than in urban areas, as a consequence of a stronger growth of food insecurity in rural areas compared to urban areas. Once again, the growth of food insecurity in rural areas was stronger in Los Ríos than in Guayas.

– Households headed by women were more prone to food insecurity than those headed by men. In the case of Los Ríos, the gender gap (difference between female-headed households versus male-headed households) narrowed somewhat in the second round, because both female-headed and male-headed households have suffered sharp increases in food insecurity. In the case of Guayas, the gender gap increased in relation to the first round. The higher poverty rate of female-headed households reveals their greater vulnerability. In the first round, the percentage of poor households[2] was 54% among female-headed households, while it was only 37% among male-headed households. For the second round, the percentages were higher for both types of households, but even higher among female-headed households (68% for female-headed households and 54% for male-headed households).