The analysis of the institutional commercialization of family agriculture via Pnae in the Médio Araguaia Rural Territory, Goiás: possibilities and limits of the approach of the new institutional economics

Abstract

Focusing on the New Institutional Economics (NEI) theories, the objective of this study is to verify the commercial insertion of family agriculture in the National School Feeding Program (Pnae) in the Médio Araguaia Rural Territory, Goiás (GO), in order to comprehend to what extent the NEI is useful for understanding the issues and peculiarities that involve family farmers. Through the dialectical method, the bibliographical research, and the data obtained from the percentage of acquisition of family agriculture via the 21 (twenty-one) municipalities of the Médio Araguaia Territory, GO, through the headquarters of the state education sub-secretaries in the municipalities of Iporá, Piranhas and Jussara, in the years 2014 and 2015, it was possible to verify the behavior of agents and farmers involved in the Pnae, demonstrating how the limited rationality and opportunism of agents, the asymmetry of information between and within organizations, the costs the specificity of assets, contracts, and the governance structure can help to understand and explain the economic processes of family farmers. Thus, we verified that the public policies of assistance to family agriculture organizations, such as the Extension Nucleus for Territorial Development (Nedet), are important for the effective inclusion of family farmers, and can also problematize transactions with more accuracy in analyzing them with a focus on the theory supported by the NEI, although the productive logic of family farmers does not focus only on the economic bias.