Presentada come requisito parcial para obtener el titulo de ingeniero agronomo. / Abstract in Spanish and English.

The faculty of natural resources, School of Agricultural Engineering of ESPOCH, with an agreement since 1992 with the Benson Institute of Brigham Young University has been working with the development of small scale production before its diffusion it is necessary to know the real social- economic conditions and the technological levels of the most important harvests of the communities, that when this model is involved in the aspects that affect the production. For this reason this investigation was made necessary in which the following objectives were raised: 1. Evaluate the social-economic conditions of the communities of San Lorenzo of Cahuiña, Guiñatus Chico and Cunambay. 2. Determine the technological levels of the harvest of barley, potatoes of the communities in study. The universe constituted the whole of families from the three communities. The sample size was 50% of the total of families taken at random in each community. The investigation was accomplished based on the observations, personal interviews, direct surveys of farmers, analysis of gathered information and secondary information. This information was analyzed based on the following statistical techniques: percentages and frequency histograms, arithmetic mean, ranges, maximum and minimum values.