Analysis of the community supported agriculture model in Brazil from the point of view of the transaction cost economic

Abstract

The marketing relationship between farmers and consumers generates transaction costs, and these costs can be minimized through use of an appropriate governance structure. The main objective of this paper was to analyze the governance structure of Community Supported Agriculture in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, in order to identify whether it favors coordination between agents and promotes the reduction of transaction costs. The investigation followed a qualitative-quantitative approach according to the survey research method. For this, it was described the characteristics of the institutional environment in order to understand the aspects that delimit the behavior of the agents and that influence the structure of governance between the agents, as well as identifying the characteristics of transactions and agents (farmers and consumers), from the viewpoint of Transaction Cost Economics.  The analysis of the characteristics of the agents showed that there is limited rationality in the perception of consumers; the characteristics of the transactions indicated a high level of locational, temporal, physical and brand specificity, in addition to the technological specificity in the farmers' perceptions; and the frequency of transactions is high. The assessed scenario shows that the specified governance structure is the hybrid - with the bilateral dependence between autonomous actors and, although adequate, requires improvements in reducing uncertainty among agents. This article brings scientific contributions by relating the theoretical approach of Transaction Cost Economics to the short channels of food production and consumption and, mainly, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, where these channels have grown in the last decade.

Keywords: Commercialization channel. Institutional environment. Governance structure.