“Sensually mapping the world”

An article by Andrew Jefford over at the Financial Times’ Food and Drink section dissects the concept of “appellations d’origine controlée.” This refers to a system which provides legal protection for a name of an agricultural product made in a particular way in a particular place. Thus, champagne is not just any old sparkling wine, but, “wine produced by a special method, from pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay grapes grown in a circumscribed region of France lying east of Paris.”

The article is a great read. Here’s a longer sample, to give you the — as it were — flavour:

Thanks to the efforts of some 250 local growers with 9,000 ha of meadows irrigated by the river Durance via an intricate series of canals in place since the late 17th century, even hay from the stony Crau plain achieved certification, in 1997, to protect and expand the reputation of this uniquely sweet, nutritious animal feed; only these growers have the right to tie their bales with a distinctive red and white twine. The hay is cut three times every summer, the first cut being ideal for horses and beef cattle, the second cut for dairy cattle and milking ewes, and the third for sheep and goats… Appellations are a way of sensually mapping the world.

Appellations of origin (aka geographical indications) have been touted as a way of protecting the rights of traditional communities over the intellectual property associated with agricultural biodiversity, although they are currently mostly used in Europe, where

(t)hey are a way of bringing difference and diversity to an increasingly homogenised marketplace, and … provide a route of access and a banner of intelligibility for small producers whose own names would never mean anything and whose products might otherwise be misunderstood.

An inconvenience to large producers and retailers, appelations “promise difference, yet difference is difficult and complex, and one of the articles of faith of contemporary commerce is that successful products must always be easy, comprehensible and user-friendly.” Which reminds me of something a friend of mine recently said about her experiences at a conference on tropical fruits. There was a side-event on the importance of diversity, but she said the big commercial producers who attended were unconvinced, saying that consumers find diversity confusing. It is of course really the big commercial producers for whom diversity is most daunting. It just makes their life too difficult. For the rest of us, it makes life livable — or indeed possible.

Can geographic indications protect cacao producers in Ghana, say — and the customers for their product — the way they presumably help the champagne makers of France and theirs? Or are they more trouble than they are worth, and stifling of innovation and experimentation? I suppose the recent spat between Starbucks and Ethiopia over coffee names is part this debate, although strictly speaking it was about trademarks rather than appellations of origin. We shall see. The current Doha round of trade negotiations does feature intense debate about geographic indications, with much lobbying from OriGIn, the Organization for an International Geographic Indications Network. But those negotiations don’t seem to be going anywhere fast.