Geographical Indication as a Strategy to Revive Small-Scale Agriculture: Evaluating Prospects for Geographical Indication Commodities as a Value-added Mechanism for Sustainable Agriculture

The purpose of this report is to relay the results of an investigation into the ability of geographical indication (GI) to increase the profitability of small-scale agriculture in the EU and US and, consequently, revive and shore up the small agricultural communities in which producers live. The EU has long had a policy of using GI to differentiate its products within Europe and across the global economy. As a result, there is much we can learn from their experience. The US has relatively little experience in this regard, but examples do exist. In what follows, we begin by examining three cases in Sicily before turning to cases in the US. Choice of Sicily as a site for European investigation is both pragmatic (two of the authors hold faculty positions in Sicily) and practical in that use of Sicilian examples provides a relatively short period to assess the effects of geographical indication. Unlike products in central portions of the EU, especially France, products of Sicily tend to be relatively recent registrants within the listing of official EU GI products. As a result, it is easier to understand their path toward official registration and many of the individuals involved remain alive, thus allowing for interviews so that the registration process can be understood in some detail. In our investigation of GI products in Sicily we explicitly focus on six points:       How are/were GIs organized? What criteria must they meet? What economic benefits do GIs provide? What social and cultural benefits do they provide (preservation of way of life, community development, etc.)? What disbenefits occur when GIs are organized? How resilient are they to climate change and periodic socio-economic shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic? How might they be transferred to other non-EU countries and, especially, the US? Having examined three Sicilian GIs in detail, we then turned to the US. In the US, GIs exist in two forms: the American Vinicultural Areas that are governed by the US government under the purview of the US Department of Treasury and those such as Florida Oranges and Washington Apples that are jointly governed under USDA market orders and US trademark law. We examine both of these systems here. Lastly, we examine possibilities for a prospective heritage product, Indiana Uplands persimmons. We close with conclusions and prospects of the wider adoption of GIs in the US.