Institutional conditions for peasants to access Geographical Indications in disadvantaged rural areas – Lessons to be learned from Colombia

The proposed project is an empirical institutional analysis identifying the opportunities and barriers for peasants to access and benefit from the food certification scheme of Geographic Indications (GI). The recent agro-food literature poses the crucial question if the institutional framework of food certification schemes might push small farmers out of the market. The aim of the study is to identify equitable conditions for peasants´ access to GI-markets, based on lessons learnt from Fair Trade and Organic as well as from Café de Colombia, the first non-European product granted the Protected Geographical Indication status in the European Union. Furthermore, the study is hoped to contribute to a sharpening and operationisation of the theoretical-analytic framework for empirical analyses of common intellectual property rights and transaction cost, i.e. the resources that are needed to establish, sustain and exchange property rights. The results are hoped to provide much needed information on the appropriate institutional climate required for GIs to be successful for rural development and providing European consumers with high quality products, transparency on the origin of production and associated environmental and social standards.