Certified organic food production aims at creating sustainable agricultural systems, balanced and diversified through the protection of natural resources but also to human health. The quality of agricultural production represents a competitive advantage for agricultural producers from Marin village, Salaj County, Romania, contributing to the cultural and gastronomic heritage of the area. This paper aims to investigate the socio-territorial indicators, economic indicators and indicators of traditionalism of Marin buffalo cheese certification allowing the area to get a group of organic and local certification products, in order to increase the agricultural potential of the area through a quality approach. In this study is used the IDEA method, a method suitable for organic certifications and traditional attestation, individual or for a group of farmers. After a complex analysis of the specific indicators, results show that the product Buffalo cheese of Marin, brings together the criteria relating to organic certification respectively traditional attestation, according to the European Regulations. The overview conclusion of this study is that local certification could major contribute to the sustainable development of rural area, preserves the last hundreds of years of tradition and protects the Romanian native values, these being often the only way to increase the rural areas.

The quality of mountain products represents a competitive advantage for the area of Bistra village, Alba county, Romania. Each mountain product comes as a result from raw materials from mountain areas and in the case of processed products, processing takes place in the mountain region. This paper aims to investigate ways to obtain mountain certification for products from this area, so it could promote agro-food products as a lever for sustainable development, that ensure economic activity. This study randomly analyze several farms in Bistra village in terms of specific indicators for mountain certification. The method used in this study is analyzing in terms of socio-economic, territorial, environmental and economic indicators. After a complex analysis of the specific indicators, results show that the Bistra village, brings together the criteria relating to mountain certification, according to the European Regulations, improving the sustainable development of the area. The main conclusion of this study is that in the current economy it is necessary to create added value for mountain products as part of a narrower niche, in order to preserve high competition and higher prices on the market, so that these farms could face competition over time.