Geographical indications and territorial development: what

kinds of patrimonial appropriations?

Thierry LINCKlinck@corte.inra.fr

Session 1 TERRITORIES, RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL

ACTORS

Laboratoire de recherche sur le développement de l'élevage

Can Geographical Indication ensure a local, sustanable and solidarian development?

What do qualification processes and Geographical indications mean ?

Qualification refers to a collective action process that involve public and professional instances, producers, transformers and operators of the supply chain: different actors, different interests, different strategies and unequal capacities.

GI is a certification device that attests the incorporation of some patrimonial values (both natural and cognitive resources). But it doesn't guaranty the preservation of the territorial patrimony as a whole.

It is also a signalization device that brings information to consumers. But

what kind of information?

So, GI may be a development tool: It strengthens coordination processes and renews the local-global

relationship. Market expansion will impulse investments and innovations flows, generate new rural activities and employment. But, what kind of innovation and what impact on territorial development?

But GI is also a collective appropriation device

Formally, GI is an intellectual property right (TRIPS 1994) : it institutes an access exclusivity to the denomination

But, practically, it is something more:

It generates scarcity (the « price of the quality » depends of the gap between supply and demand of the qualified product).

So, it implicates conflicts About the sharing of added value

About the control of the supply chain and its organization

In relation with the objectives of the qualification process

And about the contents of the code of practices (GI's terms of reference) and the certification process

GI is a collective appropriation device...

Three hypothesis All appropriations, even collective appropriations, are based on a

principle of exclusion Collective ownership can be characterized by an unequal

distribution of capacities to identify, define, access, enhance, transform and transmit a collective resource

distribution capabilities are based on specific devices (institutional, technical, consensual ...)

And three questions: who are the beneficiaries of the process? what are the ownership supports? What are the impacts on territorial heritage and social structures?

Two case studies

"Untied" qualifications from the argan forest in Morocco : The GI aims to qualify a product and a single one

while local production systems generally provide more.

The uncertain future of a pastoral Mexican cheese : how to preserve the technical and relational

knowledge mobilized in a pastoral production system?

Marroco : Spatial distribution of argan trees

Saptial distribution of goats in an argan treeThe argan forest in the western Morocco: an old symbiosis between

trees, men and goats

The argan forest :a patrimony and a localized productive system

Historically, the argan forest is formed by a mosaic of productive systems organized around:

• A complex resource: trees, low vegetation and associated cultures

• A couple of products: the young goat (the main source of animal protein) and nuts from which one draws oil for food and cosmetic uses

The argan forest is a collective resource...

The ecosystem (ecosystemic interactions, risk prevention...)

Technical knowledge (how to drive the cattle, how to manage pastoral areas)

Relational knowledge (user rights, territorial governance, collective representations...).

...and a territorial productive system

The argan forest is a landscaped area : 

trees can be pruned, some plots are cleared, others are deferred grazing for several months, the cattle routes are defined, and maintained acording to customary land tenure law (the agdal).

The system is structured by a coherent organization of labor at different scales: domestic, local community (douar) and tribe. It's impossible to separate, at these scales, gathering of nuts and herd management.

… and a « local food system »

Its products are integrated into local processing and marketing chains:

The "village killings”, the souks and the butchers networks The souk for marketing meat, nuts and oil

We can consider that kids and oil are structural components of the social food space (Poulain, 2005):

Taste learning, culinary preparations, rituals and practices of consumption...

Oil and meat goats are key elements of regional food security.

Two separate qualification devicesThe argan oil (IGP 2007 and Max Havelaar label in 2011) and and

the « argan kid meat  » (in process)

Will both processes fit into a asustainable delopment and an the empowerment of local society?

Both processes are unaware of the interactions between oil and meat: the consistency of the production system is threatened

Major interests dominate the process: the cosmetics industries and the National Sheep and Goat Association, international and urban market expectations...

A challenge: collective action, the collective appropriation of heritage of the argan tree

Dissociated collective actions controlled from outside

Two top-down processes: the influence of the notabilities, the administration, cosmetic industries or ANOC. Local producers are not really involved

Both processes are strongly dissociated : the tree is considered as a "gift from God," the goat is "demonized", accused of being a predator of the tree

Limited territorial anchorage: cooperatives are supplied to the souk, the PGI can not have any impact on the ecosystem preservation. The PGI "kid argan meat" does not value the local livestock knowledge and ignores the traditional channels of marketing.

Assessment of the two untied qualification processes

A new frame for patrimonial appropriation processes:

Weak territorial anchoring Local knowledge and practices are questioned New trade arrangements and devices compete with the

old ones Customary law are incompletely substituted by formal

institutions Deterritorialization processes and weakening of

territorial and ecosystemic governance devices

The organization of real flows

domestic crushing

Village killings

Domestic consumption, direct sales

International market

Formal chains of the certified kid meat

souk

cooperatives

Argan forestGrazing and gathering

Local consumption

qualification process, preservation and development of a remote and mountainous area ?

The sierras of the western Mexico :

• no means of communication

• no electricity

• no running water

• very low population densities

• Very hight density of localities

• no forage crops in the denomination area

The challenge

How to define the Cotija Cheese ?

a pressed cheese ?

a pastoral cheese ?

A pressed cheese

And a pastoral cheese

The second option emphasizes raw material production and territorial anchorage:- grazing and close association of animal and crop productions,- exclusive use of raw milk, - Cheese production available only in the family units,- large valorization of spontaneous vegetation,- Intensive use of technical and relational local knowledge.

These are the characteristics of a pastoral livestock system and, consequently, of a pastoral cheese

The first option don't care about raw material conditions of production :- no specification about milk permits feeding and milk pasteurization,- and encourages an increase in labor productivity...

These guidelines are not available in the area and threaten to destroy the local productive system

The Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) chose option 1- Policy to support food industries,- Repect health standards (no raw milk cheeses)- Modernize the agricultural sector ...

But his choice leads to exclude local producers and to legitimate counterfeiting

The qualification process is a staged without content

The specifications prepared by local producers (option 2) proposed:- Prohibit dairy breeds

- Prohibit the feeding

- Prohibit the use of pasteurized milk

- Limiting production to the rainy season

They aim to preserve their culture system (mainly meat oriented) and strengthen the typical cheese

The qualification process is a tool that aims to ensure the preservation of a natural, technical and relational patrimony

Some comments

GI is a commoditization device:

It aims to adapt heritage values and resources to market requirements

Thus, GI leads a dissociative process

So, what are the topics to care in a GI's process?

In both cases, market adaptation leads to:

- A systemic dissociation:

the qualified product is dissociated from cognitive frames that give it meaning at the scales of the productive system. and of the local society. This dissociation leads to the abandonment of natural and cognitive resources that may substitutes carbon energy and industrial inputs. The new system involves new ways to organize the supply chain which compete with short circuits and local food security.

- A temporal dissociation:

The short temporalities of market and policies replace :- the long term frames of intergenerational relationships, - the wide temporalities of the biological cycles and of the interna- lization of environmental risks and costs.

In both cases, dissociation involves:- a technological rupture:Feeding tends to replace grazing, the specialized breeds tends to replace local breeds. The animal tend to focus more attention than the herd. Performance is valued in the short term...

- an institutional rupture:Customary laws (in Morocco), tacit agreements and social practices that shape the rancheras societies (in Mexico) tend to be displaced by formal rules. But these new devices are weakly embedded in the territory.

- a market rupture: The new supply chain, in the case of Morocco, is superimposed to the souk and rural markets. In Mexico, the chains tend to be controlled by the modern dairy industry.

- a cognitive rupture: The new devices are not suited to collective representations and expectations of local society.

- a social rupture:New power relationships are established in connection with the entry of new stakeholders and the emergence of new interests and rules. Ownership of the GI device and local resources by the population and producers is compromised.

Conclusion

it is necessary to protect natural and cognitive local heritages.

Protection requires:

•A collective ownership based on...•...a comprehensive approach...•...open to wide time scales

However, the devices of the collective appropriation cannot be based solely on a single device commoditization