Geographical Indications and stakeholder relations along sustainable value chains

24 January 2019, Washington, DC - FAO North America and the World Food Law Institute (WFLI) co-hosted a roundtable on Geographical Indications (GIs) for food, with a special focus on stakeholder relationships along value chains. Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America welcomed the participants, among them many representatives from the diplomatic community in Washington DC.

Marsha Echols, Director of WFLI, emphasized that lots of attention in the U.S. is on trademarks, while more attention could be given to geographical indications - a special form of international property rights under the TRIPS agreement - as vehicles for rural development. The aim of the continued roundtable series on geographical indications is to introduce U.S. policy makers to GIs, which are increasingly recognized around the world for providing social, cultural, and economic benefits, while creating a strong link between food & agriculture and local development.

Florence Tartanac, Senior Officer of FAO’s Nutrition and Food Systems Division, highlighted that FAO/EBRD research has shown that local producers benefit from GIs in multiple ways. From Cameroonian pepper to Hawaiian coffee, producers receive better prices and increase their production, while often preserving biodiversity and local ecosystems. Key success factors for GIs include horizontal collective action and trust between stakeholders. However, establishing a GI is a long-term process, which can take up to 10 years.

Kae Sekine, Assistant Professor, Aichi Gakuin University (Japan), presented the research she is completing at FAO about competition between stakeholders along the value chain. She emphasized that GIs can be an innovative tool to link smallholders with sustainable value chains, however power imbalances between GI stakeholders from agricultural workers to retailers exist, and conflicts over profit shares of the added value need to be addressed.  One successful example are Italian specialty tomatoes (Pomodoro San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese Nocerino DOP), which get a five times higher price than conventional ones, and smallholders who produce on less than one hectare receive 20% of the retail price. She concluded that GIs have potential to mitigate economic power gaps among actors and contribute to sustainable local development. In order to ensure positive impacts of GI on economic, social and environmental sustainability, additional criteria in GI systems need to be established.

The roundtable ended with a discussion on the role of niche vs. mass markets for GIs, its impact on land prices, and the importance of stakeholder governance mechanisms along GI value chains.

Stay tuned for our upcoming Geographical Indications activities:

• Breakfast Roundtable: Wednesday, March 6 (9:00-10:30 am)

• World Food Law Institute Symposium: Tuesday, May 21 (9:00 am-3:30 pm)

• Geographical Indications in Recent FTA’s: A Legal and Policy Comparison: Thursday, June 13 (4:30 pm at ASIL)