Can Integration of Agriculture With International Trade Increase Farmers’ Benefits? An Analysis of the Neo-Classical and New-Institutional Perspectives

Abstract

Human activity is greatly constituted by transactions and exchange that can impoverish primary producers while unfairly making others rich in an inequitable manner. Integration of agriculture into international trade is always thought and assumed to bring greater income benefit to farmers, but is this really the case, pragmatically? Such thoughts and assumptions are based on development ideologies like the neo-classical and new-institutional development theories whose ascendancy now determine major poverty alleviation strategies. The two ideologies are compared here to determine whether indeed adopting them in integrating agriculture into international trade does increase farmers’ benefits, especially income.