ERG Syal Publications in a glance

  • Rapport de synthèse
  • Evolution des styles alimentaires à Dakar
  • La construction de la qualité des produits alimentaires
  • Le poisson fumé sur la Petite Côte sénégalaise
  • Approches et méthodes
  • La transformation artisanale de l’huile de palme au Bénin et au Nigeria
  • Consommation alimentaire des ménages urbains au Bénin
  • Les pratiques alimentaires à Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
  • L’attiéké au Bénin
  • L’aspiration au changement alimentaire à Cotonou, Bénin
  • Production et commercialisation de l’afitin fon dans la région d’Abomey-Bohicon au Bénin
  • New issue of the journal
  • The reinterpretation of the agri-food system and its spatial dynamics through the industrial district
  • Apprendre à innover dans un monde incertain
  • Alimentos e Manifestações Culturais
  • Sistemas Agroalimentarios Localizados en America Latina. Alternativas para el desarrollo territorial
  • Methods and Procedures for Building Sustainable Farming Systems
  • Agriregionieuropa - Numero 30 - Settembre 2012
  • Investigación e innovación en el sector del aceite de oliva en España
  • NEW BOOK: Farming Systems Research into the 21st Century: The New Dynamic
  • La Innovacion en el sector Agroalimentario Euroregional Galicia-Norte de Portugal
  • Quality: A multi and interdisciplinary perspective
  • A proposal for analysing the performance of agricultural processing cooperatives
  • Group heterogeneity and cooperation on the geographical indication regulation: The case of the ‘‘Prosciutto di Parma’’ Consortium
  • International Marketing and Trade of Protected Designation of Origin Products
  • Processes of qualification and spillover effects: the case of Prosciutto di Parma Pdo
  • Geografi ska ursprungsbeteckningar - En preliminär reflektion
  • D’une production localisée à une indication géographique en Amazonie : les enjeux écologiques de la production de farinha de Cruzeiro do Sul
  • Perspectivas Rurales
  • François Boucher evoca Syal en el momento de su visita en Bolivia
  • Local Agri-food Systems in a Global World: Market, Social and Environmental Challenges
  • De la leche al queso: queserías rurales de América Latina
  • SEGREDO DA TERRA  - A New Food System in a New Economy
  • SEGREDO DA TERRA - One or more Organic Agricultures?
  • Sviluppo rurale sostenibile / Sustainable rural development
  • Gastronomins (politiska) geografi
  • Guía metodológica para la activación de sistemas agroalimentarios localizados (sial)

Articles in Category: Publications & Resources

WW | Localised Agro-Food Systems and Geographical Indications in the Face of Globalisation: the Case of Queso Chontaleño

Publications & Resources

This study analyses a localised agro-food system producing Queso Chontaleño (QC) cheese in the Chontales Department in Nicaragua and the first effects of the Geographical Indication (GI) scheme which alters the power relations between the actors of the cheese-dairy sector within the framework of global dynamics. The first part focuses on systèmes agro-alimentaires localisés (SYAL), or localised agro-food systems, and it provides the theoretical background to the case study. The second part analyses the QC SYAL and its territorial and institutional context. It is found that GI introduces new competitive pressures that reinforce local elites at the expense of traditional QC actors and that the weak involvement of the State may prevent GIs from enhancing the development of territorialised agro-food systems. The conclusion is a recommendation to EU policymakers that promotion of GIs at the level of the WTO be accompanied by measures that can ensure stricter national legislations on GIs to protect local resources.

PT | New issue of the journal "O Segredo da Terra" dedicated to communication in the organic farming sector

Publications & Resources
New issue of the journal

The Portuguese journal "O Segredo da Terra", specialized in organic farming, as just issued a new number (35) dedicated to communication in the organic sector. This issue includes the papers presented in the Seminar recently held at the University of Trás-os-Montes & Alto Douro, Portugal, jointly organized by the Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies, Edibio and the Portuguese Horticulture Association. The first article presents the major conclusions of this Seminar, written by Ana Alexandra Costa, Isabel Mourão and Artur Cristóvão.  

PT | Agri-food Traditional Products: From Certification to the Market - Portuguese recent evolution

Publications & Resources

(EC) Regulations 2081/92 and 2082/92, replaced by Council Regulations (EC) 510/2006 and 509/2006, respectively, are an important contribution to establishing the foundations of European Policy on agri-food quality. They include the protection of agricultural as well as food product designations at European level, particularly those which bear a close relationship with their production area and which, due to their geographical origin and/or specific modes of production, present distinctive characteristics. Under those regulations a thousand designations are estimated to be protected within the European Union, of which about eight hundred are regularly present in the markets, accounting for a 14.2 billion Euro turnover. Portugal alone has 120 protected designations (15% of all European designations) which originate a seventy million Euro turnover (0.5% of the turnover generated by the PDO/PGI at European level). Fifteen years after the first PDO/PGI products have appeared on the national market, we believe it is important to look into the state of the art of these products in Portugal. The main goal of the present paper is to provide an overall view on the main trends of the PDO/PGI products sector at national level. The methodology used consists of a descriptive analysis of a set of specific indicators regarding three main variables: Production; Prices and Commercialization. Globally, this type of products is not very commercially widespread, despite the positive sustained evolution registered by some. As a rule these products have a poor productive dimension, which in a way may explain the lack of internationalization of the sector.

Key-words: Portugal, Protected Designation of Origin and Protected Geographical Indication, policies, market, consumers, perceptions and preferences.

WW | The reinterpretation of the agri-food system and its spatial dynamics through the industrial district

Publications & Resources
The reinterpretation of the agri-food system and its spatial dynamics through the industrial district

Th e industrial district theory has brought to the development economics the opportunity to interpret the economic change through places, where it actually is formed, as a result of the join action of the local and extra-local social, economic and institutional forces. Th is paper sets out to discuss the contribution that the industrial district theory can make to the debate on the spatial dynamics of agri-food systems in the age of globalisation. To this end, the fi rst part of the paper analyses the contribution of the industrial district approach in the relationship between industry and territory; the second part studies the evolution of the concept of the agri-food system and the main determinants of the spatial dynamics in modern agri food systems. Th is paper supports that the industrial district theory can shed a new light on the spatial dynamics of agri-food systems, and can off er an alternative to the mainstream approach. In using the local community as a unit of analysis, the ID theory gives a key role to human agents of production and their knowledge and the agri-food system can be seen as ‘a global network of places’, each place being specialized in a diff erent component of the system.

PT | Methods and Procedures for Building Sustainable Farming Systems

Publications & Resources
Methods and Procedures for Building Sustainable Farming Systems

This urgent publication surveys the latest research and methodologies combining efficiency in agricultural food production with sustainability in the same systems. Growing pressures on food production seem contrapuntal to the ever-stronger imperatives of sustainability. How can agriculture balance successes in both productivity and ecology? Sustainability is a dynamic concept, seeking to achieve a balance—in space and time—of environmental, economic and social factors. Thus, farming systems are faced with contradictory demands for success: economic performance and social equity have to be maximized, while the environment and its natural resources need to be protected.

 

Showing how the method of sustainability assessment plays a key role in choosing the best agricultural productive mode, this book guides the reader through the process of selecting, from among the various approaches for building farming systems, the method of decision-making that will result in the most appropriate outcome, given the context. Case studies hail from polities as diverse as Portugal and Canada, Argentina and Lebanon. The work thus offers a valuable critical survey of the assessment methods that account for sustainability and economics, and which have developed considerably in the last two decades. The heterogeneous approaches covered here make this volume appropriate for consultation in a wide variety of social, political and geographical contexts.

Content Level » Research

Keywords » Agriculture environment Decision support methods Sustainability assessment methodologies Sustainability farming assessment Sustainable farming systems

Related subjects » Agricultural Economics Agriculture Operations Research & Decision Theory Sustainable Development