Social, production and economic characterization of dried green pepper production in the micro-region of El Oro, Durango, Mexico

This paper aims to analyze the production, transformation, and commercialization system of dried green chili in the microregion of El Oro, Durango, identifying its problematic and complex cause. To achieve this, information from 30 producers, 16 consumers and 10 traders were collected. It was analyzed with descriptive statistics, social network analysis and the problem tree approach. Our results indicate that the production system has three main links: i) primary production is yielded by a familiar farm system where the participation of unpaid labor is high; ii) transformation, which consists of roasting and drying; the average yield was of 130 kg/year; iii) marketing, which was characterized by not being the main source of income for families. The central problem related to sales is that producers are not taking advantage of the potential to increase sales in alternative markets, observing effects such as low productivity and unsatisfied demand. However, due to the sample size, the results obtained are only exploratory. It is concluded that there is a need for management innovations that allow for creating functional organizations for producers, which generate competitive advantages for accessing new markets.