Sustainability of lemon (Citrus aurantifolia Swingle) farms in the province of Santa Elena, Ecuador

Abstract

Surveys were applied to a sample of 83 lemon producers from this province, with structured questions about economic, ecological and socio-cultural dimensions. The sustainability was determined with techniques of multicriteria analysis to calculate the Economic Indicator (IK), Ecological Indicator (IE) and Socio-Cultural Indicator (ISC), to estimate the General Sustainability Indicator (IS Gen) of each farm. The 25.3% of the farms had an IK> 2; 60.24% an IE> 2 and 55.4% an ISC> 2. The 74.7% of the farms had an IS Gen <2, which indicates that the farms are not sustainable.