This deliverable gather the 5 Policy Briefs elaborated for each of the 5 Clusters of VCs established in WP5: • Cluster S: Social and Demographic aspects • Cluster V: Value and Quality products • Cluster I: Innovation and Infrastructures • Cluster N: Nature and Ecosystem Services • Cluster G: Governance, Cooperation and Territoriality Every documents stand as [...]
This deliverable gather the 5 Policy Briefs elaborated for each of the 5 Clusters of VCs established in WP5:
• Cluster S: Social and Demographic aspects
• Cluster V: Value and Quality products
• Cluster I: Innovation and Infrastructures
• Cluster N: Nature and Ecosystem Services
• Cluster G: Governance, Cooperation and Territoriality
Every documents stand as an individual one.
Despite the extensive literature on Local Agro-food Systems (LAFS), which involves research on local food identity and organisational proximity, the environmental sustainability of these systems has rarely been addressed. This paper develops a new concept called Local Agroecological Food Systems (LAEFS), which focuses the research not [...]
Despite the extensive literature on Local Agro-food Systems (LAFS), which involves research on local food identity and organisational proximity, the environmental sustainability of these systems has rarely been addressed. This paper develops a new concept called Local Agroecological Food Systems (LAEFS), which focuses the research not only on local food identity, but also on agroecological principles. We aim to conduct a reflexive review of the literature on the conceptual factors attempting to describe the particular characteristics of LAEFS (distinguishing these from LAFS). We explore five axes of analysis: (a) to establish a compromise at the local level between agro-food sectoral specialisation on the one hand and greater cultivated biodiversity and a more diversified economic structure on the other; (b) to geographically and commercially shorten food channels to the fullest extent; (c) to construct new institutional formulae in the fields of logistics, distribution and public procurement for the scaling up of sustainable food; (d) to develop a participatory, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder and multi-level territorial governance; and (e) to reduce the metabolic profile of food systems by reorganising rural-urban linkages. One of the principal objectives of LAEFS should involve redesigning agricultural and food systems at a scale greater than that of the farm (territory or landscape). This requires both a major public policy push and sustainable territorial governance that incorporate an approach based on territory, food systems and agroecology.
The EU free trade agreements have become the single most influential force shaping the Geographical Indication landscape today. While their critics may see GIs as an unwelcome ‘Trojan horse’ to be let in in exchange for access to the European market, this legal figure has the potential of becoming greatly [...]
The EU free trade agreements have become the single most influential force shaping the Geographical Indication landscape today. While their critics may see GIs as an unwelcome ‘Trojan horse’ to be let in in exchange for access to the European market, this legal figure has the potential of becoming greatly beneficial for developing countries.
It looks in particular at Costa Rica before and after the signature of the EU–Central American Association Agreement of 2012. We examine the practicalities of its implementation on the ground and its impact on the local industry of cheese ‘generics’. It also explores its potential effect on the coffee industry and assess how a developing country of modest size like Costa Rica can embrace this foreign legal transplant and use it to its advantage.
In recent years, the European Union (EU) GI systems for agricultural products, foodstuffs, wines and spirit drinks have become increasingly popular: on 27 October 2020, the eAmbrosia database totalled no less than 3300 designations of origin or geographical indications registered under four different regulations and 197 pending applications. The legal framework secures producers’ rights [...]
In recent years, the European Union (EU) GI systems for agricultural products, foodstuffs, wines and spirit drinks have become increasingly popular: on 27 October 2020, the eAmbrosia database totalled no less than 3300 designations of origin or geographical indications registered under four different regulations and 197 pending applications.
The legal framework secures producers’ rights and their products’ value-added. It affords broad protection to PDOs/PGIs registered at EU level, not only against direct or indirect uses but also against evocations, with the aim of combatting misleading and deceptive practices and preventing traders from taking unfair advantage of the protected names’ reputation. This article examines the jurisprudence of the EU’s General Court and Court of Justice related to the protection of registered designations against evocation, and highlights the open issues that remain to be addressed to clarify the legal arsenal and tighten the protection scheme.
This paper aims to examine the implications of the efforts to promote a quality-oriented economy that incorporates a vision of environmental sustainability and equitable social development. The analysis builds on a case study of food procurement in Brazil, which intended to improve the quality of food used in public schools [...]
This paper aims to examine the implications of the efforts to promote a quality-oriented economy that incorporates a vision of environmental sustainability and equitable social development.
The analysis builds on a case study of food procurement in Brazil, which intended to improve the quality of food used in public schools. The case study follows ways that the promotion of quality food has localised the procurement operation, connecting smallholders to citizen-consumers.
The efforts to promote quality food procurement worked to shape reflexive governance in a decentralised political environment and create an institutional device based on cooperative civic participation and state engagement. However, this process highlighted socioeconomic inequality within the country due to uneven local capacities to connect good-quality services to the citizens’ everyday places. The study identifies the following paths to tackle this unevenness: improvement of place-based infrastructure; promotion of trans-local cooperation; and building on the existing informal institutional arrangements.
