Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in Ecuador Essay -- agricultural contam

The Costa region is located between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, and is made up of coastal lowlands, coastal mountains, and hilly hills that separate river valleys. Ecuador has a long and varied coastline. It is the country’s most fertile and productive land. The crops that would be commonly found in this region are: Bananas, rice crop, and cocoa. The truly coastal provinces have active fisheries. Coastal waters are rich with anchovies, mackerel, tuna, shrimp, fish, tilapia, and crab. Shrimp and tilapia are raised in small ponds. Cocoa is grown primarily by small scale farmers mainly in tropical cropping systems. Rice is a very important crop grown by small and medium scale farmers. (1) Most of this nation’s bananas, cacao, coffee and sugar cane are raised on plantations in the coastal lowlands. Oranges and rice are also grown in the coastal lowlands. Ecuador is the world’s leading producer of balsa wood which grows in the coastal lowlands. (5) The Sierra region has two major chains of the Andes Mountains, the Coproduce mainly beef and dual purpose cattle with dairy. For a country that’s no bigger than the state of Colorado, it’s amazing how diverse its agricultural regions are. (1) SOURCES: 1) Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, (2013), â€Å"South America: Ecuador†, http://www.cia.gov/library/publications, World Fact book 2) CROPS, U.S. Library of Congress, 1989. http://countrystudies.us/ecuador/46.htm 3) Country Pasture/Forage Resource Profiles , J.M. Suttie and S.G. Reynolds in January, 2003 and modified by S.G. Reynolds in May 2006, http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/AGPC/doc/pasture/forage.htm 4) Encyclopedia of the Nations, 2014 Advameg, Inc., http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Ecuador-ENVIRONMENT.html#ixzz2rMkJUyg3 5) World Book Encyclopedia, 2014, World Book inc., Chicago, IL 6) Culture Shock Ecuador, Nicholas Crowder, Marshall Cavendish 2001, Tarrytown, NY