Geographical Indications and Gastro-Tourism: Possibilities for Local Development
Washington, D.C. – The 2019 World Food Law Symposium examined trends and case studies from around the world when geographical indications (GIs) are combined with the growing sector of gastro-tourism, experiences that are linked with food related products and activities while traveling. The full day Symposium, hosted by the World Food Law Institute in partnership with FAO North America, attracted over 55 participants from the diplomatic corps, government, NGOs, civil society, and the private sector to the Cosmos Club.
Marsha Echols, Director of the World Food Law Institute, and author of Geographical Indications for Food Products, welcomed participants and was the master of ceremony. Vimlendra Sharan, Director of the FAO Liaison Office for North America, provided opening remarks explaining the purpose of the collaboration, which has to date presented a variety of roundtable discussions and two symposiums to develop an understanding of geographical indications and its application.
“Geographical Indications are an important vehicle to promote and add value to traditional food products, produced particularly by smallholder farmers, while supporting healthy foods within the broader food system,” said Daniel Gustafson, Deputy Director-General for Programmes at FAO during his keynote address on the contribution of GIs on local development and sustainable food systems.
Geographical Indication and Tourism
“By promoting the role of the producer in the production value chain through a territorial approach, Geographical Indications can play a key role in the sustainable development of rural communities and the sustainable development goals,” said Florence Tartanac, Senior Officer at FAO. Sharing findings from the report Strengthening Sustainable Food Systems through Geographical Indications (FAO et al 2018), she shared examples of how the tourism industry can support the promotion of foods with GIs by linking traditions to gastronomic itineraries such as cheese museum, saffron festival, as well as wine and olive oil celebrations.
Nina Coates shared FAO’s work on promoting sustainable agrifood value chains through tourism in Montenegro. The project included linking geographical indications with traditional food products, creating gastro routes, producing an atlas of local foods and improving the meat quality standards. She noted the postive economic relevance of the initiative at the individual and the SME level.
Gastro-Tourism and Food Heritage
Highlighting different perspectives on food heritage and gastro-tourism, the second panel presented insights from UNESCO's Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, FAO’s work on agricultural heritage sites, and Slow Food USA. Juan Esteban Orduz, President, Colombian Coffee Federation Inc., presented UNESCO’s Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, attributing the recognition to not only the coffee, but also the farming communities, their cultural heritage and efforts to preserve of the regions biodiversity.
Aurélie Fernandez described FAO’s Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), an initiative for the identification and conservation of traditional agricultural systems as models of sustainable agricultural production, with sites in China, Peru and other countries. Fernandez noted that the designation of Chile’s Chiloé Island, home to a variety of potatoes and other species, as GIAHS contributed to the promotion of the local gastronomy, the role farmers, and the recovery of traditional recipes.
Reana Kovalcik, National Committee Member of Slow Food USA explained Slow Food’s Ark of Taste - “a living catalog of delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction.” Slow Food is gradually expanding this idea to the global level, and is working through its' Presidia network with artisanal farmers directly.
Geographical Indications and Gastronomy: Promoting Heritage and Locality
Food exemplifies cultures and traditions, and can be a point of national pride. Sharing country experineces of gastro-tourism were representatives from the embassy of Japan, France, Peru and Spain. Hiroaki Kojima, Agricultural Counsellor at the Japanese Embassy, highlighted a well known GI with a lesser known GI. His examples – Kobe beef and a melon like the Hokkaido melon - illustrated the significance and economic possibilities of GI foods that seem ordinary (a melon) but are special in the view of knowledgeable consumers.
Sylvain Maestracci, Deputy Agricultural Counselor of the Embassy of France, carried forward this contrast. While many are very familiar with French champagne, Roquefort cheese, poulet de Bresse, and other French quality foods and beverages, he spoke about a salt that bears a GI Fleur de Sel de Guerande. His remarks described its ancient traditional production process. Including the historical role of women in hand harvesting the salt. Currently sel de Guerande is important to local gastro-tourism and the economy of this medieval, walled village.
Pisco is a Peruvian GI. As described by Jose Miguel Nieto, First Secretary of the Embassy of Peru, Pisco, the grape liquor, has become so popular globally that the demand is outpacing the supply. Therefore, the initiatives are shifting to other quality food products that are typical of the country.
Spain’s Begoña Nieto Gilarte, Counselor of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, concluded the final panel describing GIs and their national significance related to history, tradition, quality and in promoting cultural awareness and education.
The Chef of the Cosmos Club, in keeping with the Symposium’s focus on local foods, offered a menu titled “West Coast to East Coast” with Seattle breakfast snacks, a Taste of the South lunch and New England post-Symposium snacks.
The Symposium, through a variety of case studies, highlighted opportunities for integrating producers into the food value-chain when local foods, and foods with geographical indications, are integrated with gastro-tourism activities, while also noting the challenges of getting GIs recognized by different countires. As highlighted by Florence Tartanac, “By linking products to their production origin, Geographical Indications provides a collective marketing tool for the protection and promotion of such food products, while enhancing the provision of public goods, such as food heritage, landscapes and traditional knowledge.”
More resouces
Protecting Geographical Indications
Geographical Indications and stakeholder relations along sustainable value chains
Geographical Indications and Local Development Series Continues
Geographical Indications for Food Symposium
3rd Roundtable on Geographic Indications
Geographical Indications (GIs): Linking people, places and products for rural development