Product Qualification as a Means of Identifying Sustainability Pathways for Place-Based Agri-Food Systems: The Case of the GI Corsican Grapefruit (France)

Abstract

Existing frameworks offer a holistic way to evaluate a food system based on sustainability indicators but can fall short of offering clear direction. To analyze the sustainability of a geographical indication (GI) system, we adopt a product-centered approach that begins with understanding the product qualification along the value-chain. We use the case of the GI Corsican grapefruit focusing on understanding the quality criteria priorities from the orchard to the store. Our results show that certain compromises written into the Code of Practices threaten the system’s sustainability. Today the GI allows the fruit to be harvested before achieving peak maturity and expectations on visual quality lead to high levels of food waste. Its primary function is to help penetrate mainstream export markets and to optimize labor and infrastructure. Analyzing the stakeholders’ choices of qualification brings to light potential seeds for change in the short run such as later springtime harvests, diversification of the marketing channels, and more leniency on the fruit’s aesthetics. These solutions lead us to reflect on long-term pathways to sustainable development such as reinforcing the fruit’s typicality, reducing food waste, reorganizing human resources, and embedding the fruit into its territory and the local culture.

Geographical Indication Building Process for Sharr Cheese (Kosovo): “Inside Insights” on Sustainability

“…Many scholars have turned to studying collective action and GIs' local governance, revealed as key factors in determining GIs' (positive and negative) impacts on sustainability issues, as well as on public good provision [1]. Studies have addressed the role of formal and informal institutions in the GI-building process [71,72], the controversies arising over GI management either by a collective of producers or by the public authorities, [73] or actors' configurations along value chains that favor positive collaboration or exclusion [74][75][76]. Our research focus follows this trend toward detailed analysis of the social and collective dimension of GIs.…”

Global Markets, Local Issues: The Hegemonic Process of Agri-Food Construction to Present Challenges

“…There are discussions in academia about the concept of terroir containing other factors. Terroir is a traditional concept widely used to describe the particularities of GI products; it is widely used in the wine market, although it can be applied to all agri-food products [61][62][63]. It regards the relationship between the product's quality or taste and its geographic origin [64].…”

“…However, in response to this work, Raud-Mattedi [90] (pp. [63][64] refers to this understanding, stating that "The market, therefore, does not consist of a free play of abstract forces, supply and demand, between atomized and anonymous actors, but in a set of actions closely intertwined in concrete networks of social relations". Still, Stein [99] proposes that institutions (property rights included) are crucial to examining markets, and that biases can hinder even neo-institutionalist perspectives in the neoclassical economy.…”

The Potential of Geographical Indications (GI) to Enhance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Japan: Overview and Insights from Japan GI Mishima Potato

“…Vandecandelaere et al (2020) conclude their study by stressing the importance of considering possible trade-offs between economic development, environmental preservation and social welfare, as a perspective [1]. Recently, some GIs studies consider sustainability in a broader sense, such as in the European project Strenght2Food [17] and several papers in this special issue [18][19][20]. To our knowledge, most of these studies are based in Europe, where GIs have been established for quite a long time [17][18][19].…”

“…These European studies are performed in the context of a recent inflection in EU and national policies toward greener or more agroecological practices (i.e., "Farm to Fork", green deal, etc. ), which gives an important role to food certification [18,20].…”