CHAPTER 7
 CONCLUSIONS

 The NTAEs and Women: a Link at Stake

 Flower agribusiness has created great socioeconomic expectations in Ecuador,

where this NTAE is one of the leading sources of national income. This new form of

agricultural production appeared when subsistence agriculture was fading in highland

Ecuadorian rural areas. The rise of NTAEs and the decline of subsistence agriculture are

part of the same international process: the implementation of neoliberal policies and

structural adjustment measures promoted by the International Monetary Fund and the

World Bank. These measures are in the context of economic globalization.

 Globalization is a human phenomenon resulting from economic, technological, and

methodological improvements that allow not only the exchange of commodities and ideas

around the world, but also determine and target the best options for economic profit.

Examples of these targets could be regions, ecosystems, countries, social groups,

products. NTAEs have risen under this international logic market. The underlying reason

for their appearance in given areas of the world are the advantages in terms of production

costs and policies, which include land and labor prices, local regulations on labor, taxes,

land tenure, and others that could secure businesses profits.

 On the other hand, to achieve the needs of capital expansion it was necessary for

the predominant economic system to disrupt "obsolete" or non-required forms of social

organization. A subsistence agricultural system was seen as an obstacle, and therefore