Study of the sweet chili pepper (Capsicum chinense) production system in the Caribbean region of Colombia: a technological and socio-economic perspective

The objective of this work was to characterize technologically and economically the sweet chili pepper production system in the Caribbean region of Colombia. A survey was applied to 60 farmers using the simple random sampling technique. The economic returns were analyzed in the producing areas of San Juan del Cesar, in the department of La Guajira, and Ponedera, in the department of Atlántico, with an average of 0.6 hectares of the areas used for planting the sweet chili pepper. The average age of the farmers is 51 years old, with more than 11 years of experience in this crop. The results present differences in terms of production efficiency; for example, it was found that it is higher for the town of San Juan del Cesar, which is explained because the yields are higher by 7 t/ha- 1. In this zone, the net income is higher by a difference of COP 6.399.270 ha-1, concerning the town of Ponedera. It is concluded that the productive chain is not well integrated since the margins of commercialization, in general, are 0.69, which reveals that the farmer is the one who least participates in this surplus generated by the market.