Protected geographical indications: Institutional roles in food systems governance and rural development

Geoforum 60 (2015) 14–21

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Protected geographical indications: Institutional roles in food systems governance and rural development Ricky Conneely a,b,⇑, Marie Mahon b a b

Rural Economy Development Programme, Teagasc, Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland School of Geography and Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 25 June 2014 Received in revised form 29 December 2014

Keywords: Protected Geographic Indications Rural development Food quality Food safety Institutional roles Food policy

a b s t r a c t This paper examines the importance of national-level institutional arrangements for promoting the EU’s Protected Geographic Indication scheme (PGI). Taking the example of Ireland, for which PGI designations remain comparatively low, it explores whether the approach to providing institutional supports to the PGI scheme is influenced by top-down technocratic governance structures that pertain to food safety and quality certification that encompass the broader operating environment for food production in Ireland. Although the regulation of food safety and quality certification are distinct remits to the administration of the PGI scheme, in the Irish context the same institutional bodies are involved in governance of both. Using a discourse analysis interpretative framework, this paper draws on interviews with Irish producer group members and institutional representatives to examine how governance of the PGI scheme reflects management perspectives and practices more in keeping with a regulatory environment for food safety and quality than with development of place-based food product links. It suggests that incentives to avail of the PGI scheme as a means of realising value-added for producers are not well established because they require the development of more subjective, context-dependent processes and practices linked to geographical place and place identity. These are not easily accommodated under current institutional arrangements that also incorporate food safety and quality remits because these are in turn strongly established through nationally and internationally recognised systems of regulation and benchmarking. The findings point to the benefits to be gained from a more layered governance structure for PGI; devolving operation of the scheme to relevant regional and local development organisations that possess the expertise and relevant local knowledge to (a) incentivise the formation of producer groups, and (b) prioritise mentoring and support for PGI concept development as a clearer reflection of bottom-up rural sustainability policy. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction It is over two decades since the EU introduced measures to regulate GI certification schemes and to promote them as a means of developing opportunities that link specific localities and regions (predominantly rural) to quality food and food production. The aim has been to enable those places to create and retain valueadded from that product or process (EEC Regulation 2081/92, updated in 2006 – EC No 510/2006). The regulation particularly emphasises the potential benefits for less-favoured or remote areas through improving farmers’ incomes and promoting economic sustainability. It incorporates three schemes; the Protection of Designated Origins (PDO), the Protected Geographic Indication ⇑ Corresponding author at: School of Geography and Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Conneely). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.004 0016-7185/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

scheme (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). For a product to be registered with the PDO scheme there must be a link to a geographic area at the three stages of the product; production, processing and preparation. In order for a product to be registered with the TSG scheme, it must highlight traditional character in terms of composition or production means. PGIs protect niche markets for food and drink products which have a special character or a link to a geographical place. As stated, in order to gain PGI certification, a product must exhibit a geographical link with at least one stage of production, processing or preparation. In spite of the apparent development opportunities presented by the scheme, the rate of application for PGIs across the EU has been inconsistent, and remains low in a number of member states. This suggests that at member state level there exists either differences in interpretation and application of the scheme’s remit, or other obstacles to its progress. In the case of Ireland with a significant reliance on the rural and agricultural economy and additional

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challenges of rural peripherality, there have been just four Geographic Indication certifications, one of which is no longer being used (three PGI and one PDO). The first PGI registration from Ireland – Clare Island Salmon – was in 1999. The other three are: Timoleague Brown Pudding (West Cork) (2000); Connemara Hill Lamb (2007); Waterford Blaa (speciality bread product) (2013). At the time of data collection (June 2013), Waterford Blaa had not received its European Commission certification, i.e. the end of the ‘applied’ period; this was obtained in October 2013. A fifth registration, All-Ireland Farmed Salmon, was at the application stages with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and had not been submitted to the EU at the time of data collection. There is just one registered PDO product in Ireland, since 1999 – Imokilly Regato Cheese. At present there are no registered TSG products in Ireland (http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/ door). Due to the very low uptake of the PDO scheme and nonexistent application to the TSG scheme in Ireland, this inhibits any form of comparative discussion of either of these schemes in the Irish context. It was decided therefore to focus this discussion on the PGI scheme and the low level of take-up of same. In this regard it looks to national regulating authorities, to the processes and practices that underpin management of the PGI scheme, and to the fact that the institutional bodies that have a role in managing the scheme are also responsible for managing food safety regulation and quality certification. The paper draws on the work of Paul (2011), and Loeber et al. (2011) to examine first the significance of contemporary debates and concerns on food safety and quality certification, in terms of the power of those discourses to influence the arrangement of supporting EU and national institutional frameworks for food-related issues. It explores whether this established logic of food safety regulation, operating through dominant, top-down decision-making processes, and which connect into all national and local schemes and programmes relating to food production, exerts certain influence on the way in which the PGI scheme operates; that the more subjective, context-specific and bottom-up aspects of the scheme, i.e. those processes and practices required to incentivise and support PGI at the level of concept development and after, remain peripheral because they do not relate to the regulatory model that otherwise applies to all aspects of food production and quality control. Referring then to contemporary pressures to capture value-added for rural areas from place-based attributes, it explores whether the institutional emphasis on PGI is more about certification and regulation and less about the dynamics of endogenous development as a means of realising spatial and social development objectives and adding value to predominantly rural livelihoods. Using a discourse analysis interpretative framework, the paper draws on interviews with Irish producer group members and institutional representatives to examine how the PGI scheme is governed in ways that reflect top-down management perspectives and practices more in keeping with a regulatory environment for food safety and quality than with development of place-based food product links. Protected geographical indications – rationale of place-based competitive advantage for local food production The principal rationale behind gaining PGI certification for a food product is that it adds value for the specific geographical region to which it pertains. It enables producers to realise the value of a unique form of symbolic capital that is tied to local placebased attributes; in other words, associations with rurality and socially-constructed, value-laden concepts of tradition, authenticity and health (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 1998, 2000) that offer consumers certain recognised quality certifications and that also deliver additional social and economic benefits to rural areas (Bramley and Kirsten, 2007; Feagan, 2007; Tregear, 2003; Tregear et al.,

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2007). The development of a form of product ‘identity’ linked with place and place-specificity and thence to perceptions of quality has also been discussed in the context of promoting alternative and short food supply chains, farmers’ markets and ‘field to fork’ campaigns (Renting et al., 2003; Sage, 2003; Ilbery and Maye, 2005; Mount, 2012). From a wider rural development perspective in terms of the PGI scheme’s potential impact, there are already well-established critiques of the tensions between predominant aspatial policy responses to the ‘problem’ of rural sustainability under globalizing food market conditions on one hand, and on the other, the logic of regionally-specific development trajectories to recognise and capture the potential value of unique rural placebased assets for food development (van der Ploeg et al., 2008; Marsden, 2009). The latter is achieved through stimulating the creative and entrepreneurial capacities of local producers, facilitating their access into global networks of production, and promoting conditions for the local retention of value-capture in what are also increasingly competitive conditions for authentic and specialised food production (Renting et al., 2003; Marsden and Smith, 2005; Sonnino and Marsden, 2006). Appropriate governance and institutional support continue to be vital components of network development, with the capacity to stimulate both production and markets in what are constantly evolving institutional, producer and consumer contexts (Marsden et al., 2000). It is also acknowledged that conceptualising speciality products that denote quality based on criteria such as geographical origin entails a similarly complex and evolving set of factors that denote the links between food and territory (Tregear, 2003; Sonnino and Marsden, 2006). The value of more process-based approaches that research the exact nature of and potential for development of these kinds of links also implies alternative, more relational forms of institutional support and intervention that are in turn contingent on the specific rural spatial contexts in which they unfold (Woods, 2007, 2012). In the specific case of GIs, Rippon (2013) goes further in revealing the importance of clarifying and mediating those context-specific processes and practices that generate, legitimise and sustain the existence of GIs if the aim is to accrue benefits for the regions and producers concerned. His research on the ways in which competitive circumstances can invoke legal interpretation of GI certification as essentially a form of intellectual property indicates how the scheme is open to challenges that potentially diminish its status and appeal as a mechanism that will always recoup the benefits to the geographical region in question and to its community. The ways in which certification actually achieves competitive advantage, i.e. whether the product can command a higher price associated with heightened consumer confidence in the product’s uniqueness and quality is also subject to a complex range of variables and context-specific circumstances and conditions; these include the geographical attributes attaching to the product in terms of its origin, production and preparation processes, and the defined geographical area in which these must occur (Rippon, 2014).

Competing safety and sustainability perspectives; implications for wider food governance Another example relates to concerns about how consumer trust in food production is established. This is not to suggest that consumers equate designations such as PGI primarily or even marginally with a perception of food safety. However, in a broader food governance context, several large-scale human and animal health crises (Knowles et al., 2007) forced strong EU and national responses to food safety and quality concerns. These efforts aimed at restoring consumer trust and confidence in mainly global, damaged food markets constitute regulatory responses that have

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impacted upon all scales and sites of food production. As a result, at EU and national level the emphasis on food safety has not just come to be identified through connecting food quality to risk; it has also extended widely into domains such as public health, sustainability, ethical trading and organic farming. Predominant institutional discourses of food safety that emphasise risk embed these concerns into EU and national policy infrastructure, and are also seen as influential in steering public perceptions and decision-making about quality food production and consumption (Loeber et al., 2011; Houghton et al., 2008). In governance terms, they have also strongly informed associated institutional structures and arrangements (Loeber et al., 2011; Paul, 2011). Loeber et al. (2011) point in this regard to the establishment within Europe of a new regulatory system for food safety in the form of EU and national food safety authorities and institutes, and suggest that the latter hold considerable influence over the structure of food policy and regulation. At national level, governments have reflected the change through identifying specific departments, institutes, agencies and other representative groups as integral to formulating and delivering on appropriate policies and regulatory standards (Paul, 2011). Some of the emerging strategies have included established standards such as national quality assurance schemes that utilise discourses of rigour in scientific testing and technical monitoring of production processes. Such quality standards and schemes are seen as delivering economic capital in the form of commanding a higher price for the associated products (Grunert, 2005). Drawing on poststructuralist interpretations of discourse that underpin meanings of food safety, Paul (2011) notes that their association with certain kinds of policy and programming instruments effectively situates food safety as a policy discourse such that it becomes stabilised and ‘articulated as a technically defined self-evident concept’ (2009); it thus effectively resists debates about food production as a wider and more complex political issue of which safety is but one (albeit vitally important) consideration. Under such circumstances, dominant, scientific food safety discourses influence the nature of institutional support to certain key interpretations of food safety and quality, and potentially reduce the scope for alternative politics of food production, consumption and sustainability in a wider political and social context (Lowe et al., 2008). In this latter regard, referring again to the issue of food safety and to the ways in which institutional perspectives have shifted the focus onto risk, Loeber et al. (2011) put forward Jasanoff’s (2004, 2010) notion of co-production as a way of understanding the key role of institutions in framing discourses of food production where the issue of risk has become the predominant one. This essentially identifies the capacity of the state to ‘produce political order and its capacity to produce and use scientific knowledge’ in the construction of food risk (Loeber et al., 2011, 151). The incorporation of subjective place-based designations such as PGI that are more concerned with the concept of realising value-added for geographical locations is achieved only to the extent to which these become recognised as part of more predominant, scientifically-established discourses of food safety. The governance of PGI in Ireland In Ireland, there is to date a relatively low take-up of PGI certification compared to other EU member states, with just four PGI products registered with the European Commission (EC) compared for example to 32 from the UK, 102 from Italy and 119 from France (EC, 2014). Although new products are being continuously added to the EC ‘applied’1 listing on a monthly basis by a range of member 1 ‘Applied’ denotes the 12 month period during which the European Commission has to examine the application before it is published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

states (for example, the UK currently has 5 products listed as applied, Italy has 8 and France has 7 – http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/door), there are no applications from Ireland. The first PGI registration from Ireland, Clare Island Salmon, was in 1999. The other three include: Timoleague Brown Pudding (West Cork) (2000); Connemara Hill Lamb (2007); Waterford Blaa (2013). At the time of data collection (June 2013), Waterford Blaa had not received its European Commission certification, i.e. the end of the ‘applied’ period; this was obtained in October 2013. A fifth registration, All-Ireland Farmed Salmon, was at the application stages with DAFM and had not been submitted to the EC at the time of data collection. According to the DAFM (personal communication, July 2014), a further 10 applications are at the early (including investigative) stages of the certification process. Awareness of the certification on the part of Irish consumers is low, with just 7% of a sample of 600 consumers indicating that they recognised the scheme (Chever et al., 2012). This research focuses on two of the three PGI certifications that had been completed, and on two that were well advanced in the approval process at the point of data collection: Connemara Hill Lamb certification, Clare Island Organic Farmed Salmon certification, Waterford Blaa (Applicant at time of data collection) and AllIreland Farmed Salmon (Applicant at time of data collection). Timoleague Brown Pudding, which is also a registered PGI, was not being produced at the time of data collection. In each case, a number of producers from the geographical locations in question had emerged to identify the PGI opportunity, and had organised themselves into a producer group to take on the process of applying for and obtaining the PGI certification. This research specifically focuses attention on the producer groups currently in operation: Connemara Hill Lamb and Waterford Blaa (because the Clare Island Salmon Farm is now operating under a new umbrella group, the Marine Harvest Seafood Group, it is suggested it no longer represents a producer group as such). The All-Ireland Farmed Salmon group is referred to as it has a coherent group structure in place – ‘The Fish Quality Group’. 1. All-Ireland Farmed Salmon: An application has been received by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) for PGI registration of Irish Salmon which would include all farmed salmon on the island of Ireland (DAFM, 2013). 2. Clare Island Organic Farmed Salmon: The Clare Island Salmon was registered PGI in 1999 and Marine Harvest Seafood Group subsequently purchased the fish farm. The fish farm is located in the waters around Clare Island, County Mayo (Marine Harvest, 2013). 3. Connemara Hill Lamb Group: The Connemara Hill lamb group is a co-operative of hill farmers in the Connemara region of County Galway. The group was formed in 1999 with the aim of promoting and marketing the unique Connemara Hill Lamb, and in 2007 the group received PGI status from the EU. There are up to 100 members involved in the co-operative at various points throughout the year (Connemara Hill Lamb, 2013). 4. Timoleague Brown Pudding: Timoleague Brown Pudding was registered with PGI status in 2000 and all the meat for the pudding is sourced from pigs within a six mile radius of Timoleague in Cork (West Cork; A Place Apart, 2013). 5. Waterford Blaa Association: The association was formed in 2009 with an aim to protect the regional unique bread product, the Waterford Blaa. There are four local bakers involved in the association, which aspires to raise consumer awareness of the product, It is currently in the final stages of a PGI application (http://www.waterfordblaa.ie/meet-the-bakers, 2013). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 10 producer group representatives. Interviews were also conducted

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with 5 representatives from what were identified as the key institutions involved with managing PGI in Ireland: (a) the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM); (b) Údaras na Gaeltachta (the state regional development authority for the Gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking regions); (c) Bord Bia (the Irish Food Board which provides a link between Irish food, suppliers and existing/potential customers); (d) Bord Iascaigh Mhara – BIM (Irish Sea Fisheries Board; responsible for the development of the Irish Seafood Industry). Secondary data sources included two key national policy documents. The first, ‘Linked to the land – Developing Ireland’s local and regional food and drinks’, was published in 2012, and outlines the strategic importance of the local food sector to the Irish economy in general and to rural economy development in particular. The second food strategy document, ‘Food Harvest 2020’, was published in 2010. It emphasises the medium term strategy for the development of the agri-food, fisheries and forestry sectors up to 2020. Interviews and secondary sources were interpreted using discourse analysis. This framed an institutional and policy discourse on food quality and safety within consolidated national-level scientific regulatory contexts against those of spatially- and organisationally-fragmented producer groups advancing the potential of subjective rural place-based connections to food production as a guarantee of quality. Coming from a social constructionist tradition, this perspective assumes that reality is socially constructed and the analysis of meaning is therefore of most significance (Hajer and Versteeg, 2005). It is not the phenomenon in itself that is important (in this case, food quality/PGI), but the way in which society makes sense of it (ibid., p. 176). This ‘truth’ in turn is conditioned by the historical, cultural and political contexts in which it emerges. The notion of the discursive field (as applied by Campbell and Liepins (2001) in their analysis of the establishment of organic standards) is further illustrative of how, in the context of this research, the institutional domains within which meanings of safety and quality are constructed and embodied through policy and regulatory standards, connect with PGI after the fact, and then as a system of checks on quality, i.e. raising questions about who benefits most from their implementation and how (Hajer, 2003).

Producer engagement with the PGI process: interpreting the nature of local support needs This section interprets the experiences of a number of producers who have engaged with the PGI certification process. The main focus is on two groups; the Connemara Hill Lamb Producer group and the Waterford Blaa group. The motivation behind the PGI scheme is clearly pointed towards rural economic and social sustainability at a local level, particularly targeting less-favoured or remote areas ‘by improving the incomes of farmers and by retaining the rural population in these areas’ (Council Regulation 510/ 2006, 2006). However, Neilson (2007) comments on possible problematic assumptions about the potential of PGI to act as a stimulus to rural development in the sense of underpinning sustainable livelihoods through development of unique place-based products. He cautions that ‘geographic specificity should not be equated with producer empowerment, particularly in the absence of appropriate institutional structures’ (ibid., p. 189). In other words, creating the conditions under which PGI, as a highly specific quality identifier, can maximise on potential value added which is in turn retained within a rural locality is not a straightforward process. Marsden et al. (2000) have stated that sustaining rural development through what are necessarily short food supply chains must include institutional support and associational development which are also flexible enough to alter over time in response to changing market and other circumstances. Emerging from within very localised and

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small scale production sites in locations which are frequently already disadvantaged in structural terms, regional food products may be in a position of market failure where they do not have the scale to take advantage of market opportunities; here, state supports are necessary to overcome these competitive disadvantages (Gorton and Tregear, 2008; Profeta et al., 2010). The key institutional actors in PGI certification with whom the producers in this research were involved included DAFM, Bord Bia, Údaras na Gaeltachta, Teagasc and Local Enterprise Boards. The Marine Institute was not mentioned as having been involved in the certifications in question; however, it is listed in the PGI strategy document ‘Linked to the Land’ as a key stakeholder. Food Harvest 2020 has created a policy imperative for action in terms of increasing the number of Irish products with certification. It refers specifically to Bord Bia’s role in this regard, both in terms of maximising the impact of current designations and identifying opportunities for new designations. However, this leads back to the issue of how Bord Bia’s actual remit has been devised in institutional terms. Bord Bia is the state agency with responsibility for supporting the marketing of food products. Revealing predominant discourses of PGI The Connemara Hill Lamb group have been registered PGI since 2007, but they commenced the process considerably earlier than this in 2002. Their experience of the PGI application process was that there were very few supports available in the beginning. This situation had changed since the PGI was registered; however, the assistance still did not extend to financial support. One producer commented on the support received during the application process: ‘‘Initially the supports [the institutions and agencies] were gob-smacked that we achieved the PGI; it seems they had tried it with different things throughout the country and it failed them. Since we achieved it and with all the different food scares which have come in since, we find DAFM, Teagasc and Bord Bia are more and more helpful to us. That’s helpful, but financially; their hands are tied’’ (R5). Another noted that the main development agency in the area was also supportive in principal but unable to intervene materially to assist the group to progress: ‘‘Údaras (Údaras na Gaeltachta) is supposed to be [able to assist] but everything we have done we done it ourselves. We did get some support in the beginning for the office. But not really; they are all willing to help now that it’s done’’ (R6). The comment from the Údaras representative was that Údarás was not permitted to support primary producers, which is how the group would have been classified at the time of application. This reveals something of the scheme’s inherent contradictions since it is directed substantially towards the agricultural community, and indicates the need for greater clarification and information about its relationship to other forms of agricultural support available to primary producers. While it was suggested that the supports which are available to the group have increased since the PGI was registered, there was a strong sense that other scale-related issues were operating to downgrade the value of the PGI, specifically at a national scale because of other competitive agendas. As the only meat product in the country with the PGI certification, it was argued that the status and value of the Connemara Lamb PGI should have been endorsed as a major asset in a wider national context which in turn should have attracted some additional sponsorship or patronage. The reason for this apparent refusal to provide such an endorsement was because Bord Bia wished to promote a nation-wide quality lamb product: ‘‘The answer was they won’t support it, it has to be Irish lamb’’ (R7). Poor levels of consumer awareness were also raised as a barrier to reaping the economic benefits from the scheme which the institutional bodies had not addressed in any real sense. When probed on the supports of Bord Bia, one

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respondent questioned why they could not support the group further: ‘‘They are financed, and I don’t see why they can’t push these small products and small business’’ (R6); ‘‘They push it [the certification] this way and that way but won’t try and develop it in its own right’’ (R7). Bord Bia has stated that there is no direct marketing support available to PGI producers. However a representative clarified that ‘‘where we have existing products with PGI, we are favourably disposed to supporting those because they are unique. It’s trying to create the Parma ham for Irish beef, lamb, smoked salmon or whatever else’’ (R14). Marsden et al. (2000) argue that the development of small scale regional products can represent challenges for institutional supports as the desire to ‘‘develop speciality products needs to be balanced against regional strategic considerations associated with more generic marketing or promotion’’ (p. 436). It is suggested that this may be the case in Ireland due to a clear lack of GI registered products which appears to be influencing the ability of the support services to have a specific GI marketing campaign. It was conceded by the Connemara Hill Lamb producers that Údaras provided the group with funding for an office space. Another remarked: ‘‘I’m not knocking anyone, we are dealing with the Department of Agriculture and they do everything to support it, now that we have it’’ (R6). The importance of the PGI for local livelihoods was also discussed widely by the participants who pointed towards sustaining their local economies and communities as the key driver in applying for the PGI status: ‘‘Sustainability of the hill farms, that’s what it was set up for’’ (R7); ‘‘The other big reason to do it was to keep farming alive in rural Ireland, particularly Connemara. If people see a value in it they will keep farming’’ (R6). It is evident that the farmers involved have chosen to achieve the PGI certification for a more complex set of reasons than purely economic benefit for the group; the aspiration of the group is to sustain communities in their region and to secure the way of life that these farmers currently have; sheep farming in the hills of Connemara. In contrast, the Waterford Blaa Association was engaged in the application process at the time of interview and the supports which were available to a group seeking PGI registration could be assessed at that point. The group’s introduction to the possibility of applying for PGI was through the TASTE Council of Ireland2 in the first instance, after the group had won a Euro-toque award in 2008. At the time of writing they had been provided with a mentor who was funded by the Local Enterprise Board: ‘‘The Enterprise Board has been paying his [the mentor’s] fees for us; they gave us funding for publicity and funded pull-ups and props. We had our meetings in the actual Enterprise Centre’’ (R1). The group members were unequivocal in their opinion that the choice of mentor had been of critical importance to the development of the application process. The specific experience of the particular mentor who had previously worked for one of the state food development agencies was also described as highly significant. When asked about the effectiveness of the support services available to the group, one respondent noted: ‘‘Yes, very useful, and couldn’t do it without them. At the start it was difficult for people to pay for something which wasn’t there, and the Enterprise Board provided a grant for a mentor and other bits along the way’’ (R2). It is suggested that this represents a change in state policy towards PGI registrations in the sense that this appears to be the first PGI initiative prompted by institutional actors. This can be compared with the regional food strategy in the UK, where the state has routinely and strategically prompted GI registrations. Gorton and Tregear (2008) argue that this kind of state prompting has had little effect on increasing interest in PGI designations among producers as the regional food strategy has ‘not stimulated interest in PGI/PDO 2 A voluntary representative group of the smaller food business sector made up largely of local, artisan and speciality food producers and formally established in October 2003.

designations, producer knowledge of which remains low’ (p. 1058). However, evidence from both the 2008 and 2012 European Commission audits of the scheme indicates that the UK has one of the highest rates of take-up of GI certifications in the EU. The opinion of the DAFM representative is that the registration of further PGI products in Ireland has in fact proven to be the most effective way to provoke other producers to apply for PGI. Given the relatively low number in Ireland, when there are new products registered there is increased media attention which creates awareness of the scheme. In contrast to the Connemara Hill Lamb Group, the Waterford Blaa Association was highly complimentary of the state supports received from the outset. One of the key changes in institutional perspective would appear to be the intervention of the Local Enterprise Offices. These are established at local (municipal) government level and are arguably the closest geographically to the site of development initiatives. In governance terms, their personnel tend to be much more familiar with the business development context of their area, in terms of capital resources and deficiencies. The main DAFM policy document on PGI, ‘Links to the Land’ (2012) outlines what is essentially the government’s position on funding for the scheme: ‘There is no ring fenced funding for GI applicants. . .However there may be potential existing sources of funding which could be used to support the process of GI applicants, e.g. LEADER’ (p. 18). It is significant therefore that none of the producers interviewed mentioned LEADER support when discussing supports received. If we consider the very reason for the establishment of LEADER funding, ‘to stimulate innovative approaches to rural development at the local level’ (Ray, 2000, p. 164), it is difficult to understand how LEADER was not utilised as a mechanism to support PGI certification up to this point. The very basis of the PGI regulation at European Commission level would appear to sit very comfortably with the LEADER ethos, particularly the discussion of sustaining rural communities and less favoured remote areas. In their study of micro scale institutional support, Marsden et al. (2000) examine Llyn Beef in Wales, a co-operative of beef farmers signed up to local specification guidelines. Here, the co-operative has received instrumental support from the local LEADER company in finding outlets for sales and also in financial terms for publicity and point of sales materials. This beef group is largely comparable to the Connemara Hill Lamb Group; however, no reference to support from the local development company was made by the Connemara group. Neither was reference to LEADER support mentioned by representatives of any of the other groups interviewed; Clare Island Salmon, Waterford Blaa or All-Ireland Farmed Salmon. When the representative of Údaras na Gaeltachta (which aided the development of Connemara Hill lamb at their inception stage), was asked about the supports it was able to provide to the group, it was pointed out that there were very few supports which they could offer because of the prohibition on dealing with primary producers; there was however a suite of supports available if the group had a production system in place: ‘‘If they were putting them [lambs] into processing; we could help with capital grants, R & D, employment grants, marketing skills; dependent on the project, on how many jobs it will create’’ (R13). The Bord Bia ‘Draft Guide to PDO/PGI/TSG’ (2011) refers to the question of levels of state support for PGI applicants. It concedes that this varies quite strongly across EU member states, and refers to the fact that in the UK, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has funded a private consultancy company (ADAS) to provide specific support to PGI applicants during the application process with the aim of improving the quality of applications. Interestingly, it is also noted that in Greece and Belgium an emphasis is placed on providing promotional and marketing assistance after certification. This is an important point because consumer awareness of the scheme is perhaps the key issue in terms of producers gaining economically from PGI certification. It is

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suggested that cultural differences in specific member states may be an issue. In the countries where there has been a large number of PGI certification (such as Italy and France which account for approximately 40% of the total number of certifications) historically and culturally there may be areas that are well known for specific products. The DAFM representative commented that these countries may as a result require less institutional support to encourage uptake of the scheme, whilst in the Irish case the cultural context was different; issues around benefiting from the scheme were also different in the sense that Ireland had not experienced this form of geographically-linked branding from an ownership perspective: ‘‘If you think of the products which might be GI products, automatically people would think of cheese, which we don’t have a culture of; if you look at the Italian, the French. . .. but we found that our cheese producers here tend to be family businesses and they will use the townland name on their cheese; [in Ireland] there is a reluctance to share. . .. you don’t own a GI – it’s the geographical area, so anyone within the area can use that name as long as they follow the specification’’.

Constructing the case for PGI – place-based product specificity and institutional distance When the involvement of the main institutional parties in the Irish context is examined in relation to the PGI scheme, it appears that their primary role is to regulate the scheme through enforcement of the relevant EC regulation in terms of how to define and approve a PGI product, and how to inspect it after certification has taken place. An examination of the various agency documents and web sources where reference to PGI can be found illustrates this primary function. The national-level policy documents referring specifically to PGI (Link to the Land, 2012; Bord Bia, 2012) briefly cite the need or intention to promote awareness and takeup of the scheme; however, no funding has been ring-fenced to effect this from either a food policy or rural development policy perspective. In its Statement of Strategy 2012–2014, Bord Bia (under the heading of Artisan Foods) states that it ‘will also progress with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine the awareness and uptake of EU schemes such as PDO, PGI and TSG’ (p. 32). The implication is that it is not its primary role to lead on the issue of incentives for PGI. One exception is BIM’s support for the application for All-Ireland Farmed Salmon which would include all farmed salmon on the island of Ireland. One of the main concerns here relates to the much larger scale and potential impact of international market competition from other member states, for example, Scotland, which has successfully obtained PGI certification for Scottish salmon; i.e. the need to protect the Irish brand is perceived as much more acute. Further perusal of the Bord Bia website shows the only other references to PGI relate to safety standards and inspections (www.bordbia.ie). To date, there is no evidence that LEADER has had any direct role in giving financial or other support towards the development of any of the current PGI certification. There is reference to a proposal for PGI support (under Section C, Beef and Lamb Quality Scheme) in the current (January 2014) Rural Development Programme 2014–2020 Draft Consultation Paper, which would include; (a) group proposals, defining product control specification, on-line costs, organisation and awareness; (b) promotion of products which have received PDO/PGI recognition and other recognised regional status, i.e. trade fairs, food festivals, food tourism (p. 24). The Food Safety Authority of Ireland provides an information note on its website (www.fsai.ie) described as a guideline to the PGI/PDO/TSG legislation. It describes the PGI scheme, provides a list of all of the products registered in the EU and a sample application form. The DAFM’s webpage section on PGI provides

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a document outlining the details of the scheme (2012 version), discussing its potential to bring value added, but also highlighting the fact that geographical indications have low recognition for consumers and that investment in marketing would be a necessity. It refers to a Court of Auditor’s (2011) report which recommended a clear strategy of promotion be put in place by the European Commission. Developing the PGI concept; a producer ‘cost’ Any references to supporting PGI are primarily about the need for marketing as part of predominant discourses of competitiveness which essentially skirt the stage of concept development for any potential PGI product. This latter component is arguably a key strength of the PGI in that it inherently promotes creativity and innovation to harness novelty and uniqueness as a resource, particularly in a rural sustainability context (van der Ploeg et al., 2008). Among the main challenges to progressing PGI applications observed in this research have been first, for groups to identify a PGI opportunity, and then the process of constructing the necessary supporting narrative around it. This requires the capacity to identify and source relevant place-specific information that can be connected to the product and used to define it, i.e. a capacity to engage in a research process that requires relevant expertise and experience. For the Connemara Hill Lamb Group, this undertaking was clearly an ad-hoc process, institutionally unsupported, and relying on a local historian and a family member of one of the producers to informally conduct the required research and piece together the required narrative of geographical specificity and uniqueness. In the case of the Waterford Blaa, the Taste Council of Ireland (via the DAFM) made direct contact with one of the main bakeries involved; however, at that stage the Waterford Blaa had won a Euro-toque Food Award (2008) which had already raised the national profile of the product. Appointing a mentor, arranged and paid for by the County Enterprise Board (now Local Enterprise Offices) provided for key dedicated support to the group in terms of an overall application strategy which has proved invaluable for developing coherence within the producer group and establishing a dynamic working relationship among them; however, it was evident that the task of building the actual case for certification was still down to the group members: ‘‘We had to do a lot of research into the history because in order to get PGI you need a bit of history behind it and unfortunately during the Civil War much of the history records were actually destroyed; we had a lot of oral history but we needed it documented; we originally found an ad in the paper from 1974 after searching through libraries and all that. We had to do all that; different members had different jobs. Time and effort wise -very much so – a lot of red tape’’ (R1). Regulation and inspection; imposing institutional cost? Applicants for PGI must nominate an inspection body such as DAFM, Teagasc, National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) or private inspection bodies which are required to be accredited to European Standard EN 45011. DAFM requires inspection bodies to also be accredited to the national accreditation body, the Irish National Accreditation Body (INAB), the national certification body responsible for accreditation in accordance with International and EU standards. The various inspection bodies also operate as private entities in competitive markets in relation to setting fees and charges for their services. Ménard and Valseschini (2005) refer to certain realities pertaining to quality control in the agri-food industry in increasingly competitive markets, specifically the danger of institutions becoming excluded from the process through privatised and centralised arrangement between larger scale food

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retail corporations and suppliers. This signals the prospect of continued scaling upwards of the control of supply networks to the detriment of smaller scale, locally-established producer groups. They point to the need for what they describe as more hybrid arrangements (p. 421) whereby institutions engage in certain forms of trade-off in arrangements involving public and private organisations in order to remain instrumental in the process of food quality certification, whilst also protecting market competitiveness (Ménard and Klein, 2004). The reality of private entities such as the NSAI which is independent from producers and retailers is that it obtains its remit and legitimacy from the state. The Waterford Blaa group is currently engaged with Bord Bia and the NSAI in establishing traceability standards for the product, the cost of which will have to be borne by the producer group, but which will be in place for possible future institutional use to assess similar product applications. In terms of competitiveness and the issue of transaction costs, it would seem at the moment that national authorities are adopting a risk-averse stance in terms of how they see themselves supporting the PGI scheme. This is having the added effect of transferring the cost of that risk (in the form of paying for inspections) to the producer before there is any evidence for them that the certification will return any dividend in terms of increased profits. It is stated in the Bord Bia Draft Guide to PDO/PGI/TSG (2011) that in Jersey, UK, the state administration ‘‘bear the cost (application, administration, etc.) of joining the PDO/PGI scheme [and in addition] farmers and traders are effectively relieved of all direct costs with the exception of having the label printed on the packaging’’ (p. 11). It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of such a move without an examination over time of application numbers in the area. The DAFM representative did acknowledge that strengthening the support network available to producers was necessary to increase take up of the scheme; reference in this regard was made to the establishment of a committee involving DAFM, Bord Bia, BIM, Teagasc, TASTE Ireland, and to formalise the cross-agency approach that they had already been operating. The composition of this committee continues to reflect a strong food policy perspective, with the opportunity to avail of more specific rural development insights potentially requiring the presence of a representative from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government DECLG, which has responsibility for national rural development policy. In this regard, the extensive rural development remit and expertise that is also held within Teagasc, and the discourse of sustainable livelihoods of small food producers advanced by TASTE Ireland could also contribute towards a more broad-ranging and informed interpretation of the concept of PGI certification from a rural sustainability perspective. The nonavailability of dedicated supports under the umbrella of rural development policy would appear to be a key weakness in the way the scheme is operated in the Irish context. Rural development policy is under the auspices of the DECLG, whereas food policy is under the remit of the DAFM. All of the key development agencies connected to rural development have a presence at regional and local government level. These include the 2 main Regional Development bodies – the Border, Midland, West Regional Authority, and the South and East Regional Authority; Local Enterprise Boards (via the local authorities), and, from the next funding period, the local authorities who will have administrative responsibility for LEADER. Údarás na Gaeltachta, the regional development body for Gaeltacht regions has a similar development remit that specifically covers those regions. The capacity of institutional actors who operate closer to the rural place-based context from which PGI applications might emerge and on which real competitive advantage might be built is seen as a key missing component in current PGI promotion strategies.

Conclusions The PGI scheme’s priorities are to promote opportunities that link specific localities and regions (predominantly rural) to high quality food and food production, and through this to enable those places to create and retain value-added from that product or process. Because it centres on the development of subjective placebased quality food branding opportunities, it requires a significant local bottom-up dynamic. Specific food safety and quality certification with its more established quantifiable and sustainable discourses of risk is managed as a set of top-down institutional processes and practices. The implication is that this remit should be managed separately in institutional terms and not conflated with the PGI scheme’s development priorities. This paper has focused specifically on the ways in which a predominant institutional focus on food safety and quality has led to a relatively limited interpretation of the concept of PGI from a rural development perspective. Looking at the specific ways in which the PGI scheme is institutionally managed, i.e. within a technocratic governance structure and involving institutional actors whose food safety and quality perspective remit and expertise is being primarily invoked, it contends that PGI is discursively framed to reflect a certain political order relating to food safety; this is one which interprets PGI as a quality control phenomenon that is to be managed and sustained through establishing proper standards and inspections once certification is obtained. Discourses of rural development and sustainability remain marginal, and even discussions around competitiveness and market value in a rural development context receive limited attention. PGI certification as a means of adding value to rural livelihoods as a social objective does not find the institutional space to emerge. Although Ireland’s commitment to the PGI scheme is not in doubt, the current institutional framework for PGI which does not feature a strategic link to a rural development department must be viewed as a weakness in the governance structure which has the effect of considerably lessening the effectiveness of the scheme. The fact that the GI schemes and the proposal for targeted support merit specific mention in the current Rural Development Programme suggest some change in priorities; however, this needs to be followed through with specific empowerment of the relevant regional and local organisations whose personnel already possess the expertise and capacities to work collaboratively on the strategic development of both food and rural sustainability policy (e.g. Regional authorities, enterprise boards, local authorities, LEADER organisations, Teagasc). Otherwise, the value of the scheme will remain unrealised and take up will be limited.

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