LABELLING THE MOUNTAIN AND VALORISING ITS PRODUCTS

Billet publié dans Workshops le

Workshop 1 – Labelling the mountain and valorising its products

Moderation: Thomas Egger (SAB). Co-organization: Marie Clotteau (Euromontana, European Association of Mountain Areas), Olivier Beucherie (Master Food Identity of the Higher School of Agriculture of Angers-ESA) and Alice Dos Santos (Origin for Sustainability – O4S)

Agriculture has a central role in the development of mountainous territories. On the one hand, it provides ecosystem services – such as conserving biodiversity-rich semi-natural habitats (European Environment Agency, 2010) and, on the other hand, it contributes to the economy of mountain communities and shapes their identity (Mitchley, Price, & Tzanopoulos, 2006). Mountain agriculture is strongly characterized by demanding environmental conditions – rugged topography, access difficulties, reduced vegetative seasons – but also by a rich biodiversity. To adapt to this environment, mountain farmers have been able to develop diversified and low-input production systems. Their agricultural practices and ancestral know-how have resulted in a wide variety of food products (Price, Byers, Friend, Kohler, & Price, 2013). Thus the valorization of mountain food products is of primary importance for the mountain communities. Valorising on the quality of mountain products allows the creation of added value during their sale and therefore helps to maintain and sustain agricultural activity in the mountains (EuroMARC, 2009, FAO, 2013).

To valorise their products, mountain stakeholders have developed various strategies, labelling is one of them (McMorran et al., 2015). There is a wide variety of quality schemes and certifications related to mountain products: public or private, related to the mountain in general or to a specific soil, carried by a sector or a distributor, etc. The workshop will aim to discuss the role of labelling in the construction of sustainable mountain food systems and will be structured around three objectives:

  1. Enhancement of different certifications of mountain products and their functions
  2. Analysis of the difficulties encountered and to be overcome
  3. Highlighting future avenues of work and possibly initiatives that could be developed jointly

 

Program

  • Introduction (Thomas Egger, SAB)
  • Flash presentations of concrete examples
  • Discussions
  • How to organize the actors of a sector and a territory?
    • Build governance tools (specifications, value-added distribution mechanisms)
    • Ressources
    • Collective commitment
    • Link to the territory
  • How to reach and integrate consumers into a labelling process
    • Development of a marketing strategy: construction of a participative approach, education, identification of sales channels, prices, etc
    • Create communication tools: advertising, website, …
  • Which legal and institutional framework is needed to best support this process?
    • Incentives and official recognition of products
    • Sanitary
    • Sale
    • Traceability and fraud
  • Synthesis of the workshop (Olivier Beucherie, Master Food Identity of the Higher School of Agriculture of Angers – ESA)
  • And now ? What actions after the workshop? (Marie Clotteau, Euromontana)

References

  1. (2009). Designation and promotion of mountain quality food products in Europe: policy recommendations (p. 36). European Mountain Agrofood products, Retailing and Consumers – VIth RTD Framework Programme, European Commission.
  2. European Environment Agency (Éd.). (2010). Europe’s ecological backbone: recognising the true value of our mountains. Luxembourg: Off. for Off. Publ. of the Europ. Union. Consulté à l’adresse http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/europes-ecological-backbone
  3. FAO (Éd.). (2013). Mountain farming is family farming: a contribution from mountain areas to the International Year of Family Farming 2014. Rome: FAO.
  4. McMorran, R., Santini, F., Guri, F., Gomez-y-Paloma, S., Price, M., Beucherie, O., … Cloye, G. (2015). A mountain food label for Europe? Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de Géographie Alpine. https://doi.org/10.4000/rga.2654
  5. Mitchley, J., Price, M. F., & Tzanopoulos, J. (2006). Integrated futures for Europe’s mountain regions: Reconciling biodiversity conservation and human livelihoods. Journal of Mountain Science, 3(4), 276‑ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-006-0276-5
  6. Price, M. F., Byers, A. C., Friend, D. A., Kohler, T., & Price, L. W. (2013). Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions. Univ of California Press.