ABSTRACT
Microtrade has been defined by Lee as a form of “international trade on a small scale, based primarily on manually produced products using small amounts of capital and low levels of technology available at a local level in [least developed countries] LDCs” 1 and “as an alternative approach to reduce or eliminate poverty where an LDC economy is not supported by a well-functioning government and effective administrative assistance”. 2 This approach can be extended to marginalized regions and/or marginal groups 3 within emerging economies, as well as LDCs, that have been neglected by state agencies and/or bypassed by mainstream economic development. This chapter discusses the possibility of microtrade with agricultural products. (Cases of microtrade-type transactions with manufactured products are introduced in Chapter 2 in the context of product demand.)
