Programme de bourses "Jeunes Chercheurs"
Developing agro-food products with a geographical indication in Serbia
In a context of liberalised economy, agro-food initiatives that are not competitive in a strategy of decreasing costs due to economy of scale cannot be sustainable on conventional products’ markets. These initiatives have to innovate and differentiate with specific strategies of economy of scope, or specific quality products (organic, origin, fair-trade …) that justify a consumer’s premium. Moreover, other actors (e.g. municipalities, NGOs, foreign agencies) might have expectations regarding the role of agro-food initiatives in the rural development process.
In this context, the PhD project entitled “Collective agro-food initiatives and sustainable rural development: articulation between internal governance and rural governance” was aiming at identifying the factors of the internal governance of agro-food initiatives which favour positive impacts in terms of sustainable rural development.
The research work, based on a case study analysis from Switzerland and Serbia, included:
- An analysis of the internal governance of agro-food initiatives and their strategy regarding side-effects on rural territories;
- An analysis of the role of facilitators in the development of agro-food initiatives;
- The development of methodologies to assess the territorial impact of these agro-food initiatives.
Transition countries are an interesting research field because of the emergence of many initiatives to protect Geographical Indications (GIs). Three Serbian GI initiatives were selected and investigated: the kajmak from Kraljevo, the raspberries from Arilje and the smoked beef of Uzice. Indeed, GIs’ registration is a current issue in Serbia. The law on protected designations of origin (PDO) and protected geographical indications (PGI) was revised in 2006 and 2010, and several products are on the process of registration.
The research was development-oriented and we worked in partnership with several local partners (IDA and SEEDEV). Four fieldworks were organised between June 2007 and September 2009. A study tour was organised in Switzerland in the frame of the project. It gathered a dozen of Serbian facilitators and producers.
A registration under Protected Designation of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication could lead to the following advantages:
- organisation of the supply-chain, transparency in the distribution of the value added and strengthening of the market link,
- increase of negotiation power between producers with downstream operators and partnerships with external institutions,
- keeping positive territorial effects in rural areas (increasing value added, slowing down rural exodus, keeping a traditional artisan product and heritage associated to it).
Main results and recommendations
- Potential territorial effects and facilitation
The results highlighted that the territorial effects of the studied GIs are balanced. Most of the potential benefits observed in the first development stage concern the stabilisation of the supply chain in a period of important restructuring, the development of new market opportunities and learning process of managerial and technical innovations.
A need of facilitation activities both at local and national levels was stressed. Local facilitators must help structure the group, catalyse the group process and develop formal and informal networks. Nevertheless, in absence of clear short-term economic benefits for each farm and enterprise, these activities cannot overcome the reluctance of producers to join a collective action. There is a risk for local facilitators to lean towards authoritarian leadership, and lose participative approach. Co-facilitation is recommended in order to both distribute the responsibilities in a complementary and interdependent manner towards the local community and the backers.
- Assessment of GIs’ territorial impact
Many methodological difficulties impede a large development of impact assessment. Due to the difficulties to identify a baseline, the causality relation is difficult to be stated and quantified. It is for example difficult to distinguish what is caused by the protection and what is caused by the GI system itself.
A subjective approach was proposed to complete the assessment tool kit. Inspired by the multidimensional measurement of the well-being concept, we developed a method for assessing the territorial impacts. This method is founded on the perceptions stakeholders have of the supply chain’s externalities. The principal advantage of the method is a more holistic view of rural development issue. Research studies clearly identify the ability of GIs production systems to create positive effects on rural development. However, the protection scheme does not guarantee these positive effects, but may rather reinforce them. The registration process should look carefully at the present territorial effects (economic, social, and environmental), as the positive effects depend on the strategies that local and non-local actors undertake.
- Dilemmas
Several dilemmas where highlighted at different levels:
a) Economic benefits versus social and environmental values. Expectations with respect to GIs mainly concern economic benefits. Though economic expectations are largely justified, our research highlighted potential social and environmental risks in the search of short-term economic benefits.
b) Competition versus cooperation, and individual strategies versus collective action. At the supply chain level, the strengthening of individual strategies that result among others in a lack of trust and an unfavourable institutional context, impede the development of collective action initiated by facilitators.
c) Openness versus exclusion and loss of commitment. Facilitators create an atmosphere of openness and inclusion. However, exclusion happens, linked to the geographical delimitation and the definition of production rules or hygienic rules. We recommend a brief informative phase, rapidly followed by the building of a working group with the most motivated people. Trying to represent all the interests in the working group is theoretically fair; however overcoming a reluctance to participate can be a time-consuming activity.
Additionally to the dilemmas highlighted above, we identified three potential fields of friction that concern transition and developing countries more specifically:
a) Donors’ agenda versus local long-term process. There is a tension between the willingness for donors to obtain results in a short term, and difficulties on the field to undertake an efficient facilitation process in a short timeframe. Building a GI organisation is time demanding and there is a need to adapt objectives to time constraints linked to development projects. Additionally, overburdening local facilitators with unreachable objectives might give incentives to facilitators to lean towards authoritarian leadership that would be counterproductive.
b) Willingness to rapidly comply with EU requirements (and/or WTO requirements) versus current institutional context. Complying with EU regulations in the perspective to enter into the EU needs to promote a quick building of the required institutions such as certification agency. On the other hand, the distribution of responsibilities is not clearly defined among national institutions (e.g. Serbian Ministry of Agriculture and Intellectual Property Office) and a certain bureaucracy remains.
c)
Simultaneous constructions of both the national context and the local initiatives (risk of vicious circle in terms of commitment). In order to avoid such a vicious circle, we recommend building a community of facilitators, being local or national facilitators. Local facilitators are connected to local “communities of place and interest” whereas national facilitators connect “community of interest”. Bridging the communities of place and the local communities of interest with the national GI community of interest would encourage exchanges of experiences and knowledge sharing at local and national levels.
Contacts in Switzerland:
Dr. Marguerite Paus and |
Prof. Dr. Bernard Lehmann and |
Contacts in Serbia:
Dragan Roganovi Email: ibarda@ptt.yu |
Pascal Bernardoni, Rémy Reymann and Dragana Tar Email : |
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| Photos by M. Paus et A. Perret Production of kajmak and white cheese: household production and small-scale dairy production |