• 1  Word Trade Organization (WTO) defines geographical indications as place names used to identify the (...)
• 2  WTO TRIPS Agreement: ‘Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights’.
• 3  Brazilian Intellectual Property law (9.279/96) defines two types of GIs: Indication of Source (Ind (...)
• 4  Vineyard Valley.
• 5  Bells Valley.

1The past 100 years have seen European farmers increasingly keen to establish a link between traditional products and their respective places of origin. That link has attracted growing debate since the late 20^th century (Delfosse, 1997), not least in the context of globalization (Murdoch et al., 2000; Winter, 2003; Sonnino & Mardsen, 2006). Origin-linking has been much slower to take off in developing countries, which have only recently jumped on the bandwagon (Vitrolles, 2006; Wilkinson & Cerdan, 2008; Marie-Vivien, 2008; Bienabe et al., 2009). Geographical Indications1 (GIs) are a specific strategy to promote and protect the quality of a food product and its link with territory. On the one hand, the use of GI enables producers to obtain market recognition and often a premium price. On the other hand, GI impacts on social, cultural and environmental development (Barjolle et al., 2009; Cerdan et al., 2009). GIs can be instrumental in conserving tradition and transferring know-how and since their definition in the TRIPS2 agreement in the mid 1990s have become an important issue for developing countries. First defined in Brazilian Intellectual Property Law in 19963, GI status has now been awarded to six Brazilian products: wine from Vale dos Vinhedos4, coffee from Região do Cerrado Mineiro, beef from Pampa Gaúcho da Campanha Meridional, cachaça from Paraty, leather from Vale do Sinos5 and recently grape and mango from Vale do Submédio São Francisco. Their success has prompted others to follow suit, with GI recognition now regarded as a potential tool for development by producers across the country. Applications in the pipeline include golden grass handcrafts from Jalapão, wine from Vales da Uva Goethe and Serrano Cheese from Campos de Cima da Serra. This burgeoning enthusiasm for GIs calls for urgent research aimed at raising awareness of their limitations (Niederle & Vitrolles, 2010; Vitrolles, 2006). The Brazilian initiatives launched to date are supported by national institutions that promote origin-linked quality. What these institutions must be made to realize, however, is that the top-down approach common to all of these initiatives could lead to standardization of production methods that would destroy local knowledge (Casabianca & Sainte Marie, 2000; Duboeuf & Delfosse, 2000; Delfosse, 2007).

• 6 Our sample was not statistically representative but gives an idea of the dynamics within the territ (...)
• 7  Interviews followed a seven-point plan: (i) producer description; (ii) land and administrative cha (...)

2Our analysis is based on the Brazilian case study of Serrano cheese – a raw milk  cheese from Campos de Cima da Serra, identified by a Brazilian institution as a potential candidate for Geographical Indication. The aim of this investigation was to determine whether or not GI classification posed a threat to food heritage by undermining the traditional diversity at the heart of local food production systems. Serrano cheese is a case in point. Our findings could help to shed light on culinary heritage, encouraging the institutions involved to consider other quality labelling schemes (private or collective trademarks, certifications) rather than deliberately focus on GI. The data presented in this paper are from a PhD research study about linking territory and traditional products from South Brazil. The fieldwork was conducted in 2008 and 2009 in Rio Grande do Sul State as part of a qualitative case study of Serrano cheese. Semi-structured interviews were held with 73 respondents6 who were selected by location and social status (cheese producers, politicians, technicians, vets, merchants, middlemen and people in tourism)7. The research also included participant observation from seminars and workshops and analysis of technical documents, scientific literature and institutional reports. This method was intended to highlight that Serrano cheese could be considered as an origin-based product. Data collection improved understanding of Serrano cheese production, supported by a comparative analysis of interview data showing use and type (ie locally specific or not) of local resources (Colletis & Pecqueur, 1993; Gumuchian & Pecqueur, 2007). Serrano cheese is considered as a local specialty in the area of production and throughout the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. The case-study fieldwork showed a triple specificity of Serrano cheese based on territory, producers, and methods of manufacture, reinforcing the link between Serrano cheese and its temporal and spatial origins. It also demonstrated the emergence of a new strategy to enhance Serrano cheese value.

• 8  This article is based on a paper presented at the International Symposium ‘Localizing products: a (...)

3This paper8 focuses on the specificity of Serrano cheese. It starts by describing the history and present conditions of Serrano cheese production. Having established the context, it then introduces the GI system, highlighting present-day initiatives to enhance the value of the cheese as a local specialty. It concludes with a discussion of the effects of the GI system on local producers and Serrano cheese.

• 9  Tropeirismo, from tropeiro or cattle herder. Since the 17^th century, tropeiros have been moving li (...)
• 10  Tropeiros exchanged surplus agricultural production for sugar, manioc flour, cachaça.

6The historical anchorage of Serrano cheese production is very important (Menasche & Krone, 2007; Cruz et al., 2008; Krone, 2009) and closely linked to the settlement of southern Brazil. The discovery of gold mines in Minas Gerais State in the 17^th century fostered the development of the trade in livestock (tropeirismo9) and created new trade routes linking the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. These in turn led to the settlement of Campos de Cima da Serra and the development of farming. The mule trade preceded the trade in cattle, geese and eventually processed products like leather, dried meat, cheese, pine nuts and horsehair. Cheese from Campos de Cima da Serra became one element in a very well-organized barter system that supplied farmers as well as tropeiros (Brazilian for ‘cattle-herder’)10.

• 11  Quotation from interview.

9Cheese production is a family activity. Traditionally, the men did the herding and milking and the women made the cheese, though recent decades have seen a shift towards a less rigid division of labour. Each family has its own recipe, based on local knowledge and skills handed down through generations of womenfolk (whether grandmothers, mothers or mothers-in-law). “My mother already made cheese and taught my wife when we got married. We use exactly the same method today – only the equipment has changed”11. One major change, courtesy of new technology and consumer demand, is the use of industrial rennet to curdle the milk, not armadillo digestive enzymes as before.

• 13  Tropeiros visited the farms two or three times a year. The bigger the cheese, the better it ripene (...)

12Most producers have now switched to plastic or stainless steel moulds for reasons of hygiene and ease-of-use. The cheese itself is also considerably smaller than it used to be. As roads and vehicles have improved, Serrano cheese has shrunk from a big13, round, hard cheese, ripened for several months, to a smaller, soft cheese usually consumed within a few days of ripening (from 5 to 15 days).

• 15  Quotation from interview.

14Serrano cheese remains a local product, popular throughout the region for its traditional, hand-crafted qualities. People in Campos de Cima da Serra take great pride in their cheese, which still looks and tastes as it always has despite the use of new technology. For them, Serrano cheese is part of their heritage. According to the Institute of National Artistic and Historical Heritage (IPHAN), Serrano cheese is an example of Brazilian intangible cultural heritage. IPHAN defines this as the non-physical cultural legacy that is handed down from generation to generation: practices, ways of seeing and thinking about the world, ceremonies (religious celebrations and rituals), folklore (dances, songs, legends, tales, history, jokes), skills (foods, crafts, etc.), along with the instruments, objects and places associated with that legacy. Serrano cheese from Bom Jesus is particularly famous. Like so many popular goods, however, Serrano cheese has fallen prey to imitators and consumers must beware of fakes. Take this example of passing-off: “One day, the manager of one hotel where I usually sell my cheese told me that my last delivery had not been as good as usual. A man who identified himself on my behalf had delivered the cheese. I never let anybody sell my cheese except me! Someone had used my name and my reputation to sell lower quality cheese”15. Regional producers and middlemen recognize that others types of cheese like Minas or Prato cheese are sold as Serrano cheese in regional markets.

• 16  Quotation from interview.
• 17  ‘Production specifications’ refer to the French expression ‘cahier des charges’.

19Emater’s ultimate goal is to promote local growth and certification initiatives in line with sustainable development. For the past ten years, the agency has been looking for ways to boost productivity on family farms. For Emater’s regional spokesman, “Serrano cheese has been identified as the food product which is the most likely to be certified in the region”. Its potential is due to its reputation, to the regional history of settlement, and to other links with origin (culture, know-how)16. These were the reasons that in 2007 prompted Emater to launch a project aimed at registering Serrano cheese from Campos de Cima da Serra under Brazilian regulations covering the protected designation of origin products. The first priority is to define the production of Serrano cheese in order to legalize it, but the main objective is to obtain official recognition of the cheese as an Indication of Source. Definition entailed four stages of research: historical exploration of Serrano cheese production; market and supply-chain assessment; product and process profiling; and characterization of the cheese’s physical, chemical, sensory and microbiological properties. Once all the findings have been finalized, Emater will be in a position to propose production specifications17 (code of practice) and apply to the National Institute of Property Rights for GI registration. The case study confirms the top-down nature of the process.

• 18  Vacaria, Ipê, Campestre da Serra, Monte Alegre dos Campos, Bom Jesus, São José dos Ausentes, Camba (...)
• 19  Regulation 146/1996 defining technical standards for dairy products.

23Historical research (documents and interviews) identified eleven places18 where Serrano cheese was formerly produced. Emater limited the production area to just six: “the six places where we concentrated our work represent more than 90% of Serrano cheese production”. It is interesting to note that there are two main reasons for these shrinking boundaries, the first being Emater itself. Some 15 years ago, Emater technicians provided courses for regional cheese producers on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMFs). What they realize today is that in learning GMFs, producers were in fact taught to make cheese from pasteurized milk, such as colonial cheese from southern Brazil – not Serrano cheese that does not comply with the minimum 60-day ripening period and is therefore not authorized for sale at local or national level19. Women from Campos de Cima da Serra who learned GMFs were encouraged to use production methods incompatible with Serrano cheese production, at the expense of local skills and cultural identity. The second reason that the production area has shrunk is farm succession. The younger generation shows little interest in taking over from their parents, generally preferring an urban lifestyle to rural living (Silvestro et al., 2001). Moreover, there is nothing straightforward about raw milk cheese production. The qualities of food products like Serrano cheese are linked with traditional, historical and cultural aspects, but may require particular skills or techniques that conflict with hygiene requirements. Today, such products increasingly fall foul of newly-adopted standards of hygiene and tax practice (Ricard, 1998; Bérard & Marchenay, 2008; Cruz et al., 2008). Consumer habits have also changed. Serrano cheese does not comply with Brazilian regulations banning the sale of raw milk cheeses that have not been aged for at least 60 days. Violators face prosecution and even the loss of the production – a prospect that the younger generation is unwilling to confront. As their children turn away from farming, producers often stop producing cheese altogether.

• 20  French law of 28/11/1955, modified and completed by the law of 06/07/1966.
• 21  Translation of “Appellations d’Origine”.

26The quality certification of Serrano cheese forms part of an institutional project. The creation of product specifications and criteria for classification have to be considered with the utmost care because: “When the certification process is not controlled by local players, or at least when local players do not participate in the process with a recognized equal status, certification may lead to the expropriation of local knowledge and the benefits deriving from its enhancement by players from outside, rather than the integration or synthesis of local and scientific knowledge” (Fonte, 2008: 214). In other words, Serrano cheese is subject to the same requirements as French cheeses in 1955 following the passing of legislation20 defining ‘designation of origin’21 for cheese. Cheese designation of origin has been defined by the delimitation of a production area and the definition of the conditions of production and ripening. In Cheesemaking France, Delfosse (2007: 105) explains that even if the law recognizes the “special nature of terroir products, it leads to a certain standardization because producers who seek designation have to present product specifications that strictly define the cheese’s characteristics”. Product specifications (area delimitation, practices) are one step in GI implementation. In creating rigorous product specifications for Serrano cheese, regional food heritage would be affected.

• 22  Translation of “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC)”.

27“How not to reduce this diversity when producers should opt for a practice, a production method, an ingredient, a recipe rather than another in the frame of legal protection?”(Bérard & Marchenay, 2004: 83). Poméon et al. observed similar problems with Cotija cheese in Mexico. For these authors, “the justification of delimitation of the production area and studies of links between the product and its territory are often superficial”: Neither product characteristics and production processes nor territorial anchorage of product characteristics and practices are satisfactory (Poméon et al., 2009: 8). But GI implementation is as much the result of claiming links with territory as with specific production practices and know-how. For Delfosse (1997: 220), this claim needs to mobilize “geographical knowledge, especially when it is a question of area delimitation”. In other words, area delimitation and the codification of working practices refer to climate and soil characteristics, culture and history, production system features, know-how, skills and the social organization of local players (producers, traders, technicians, and so on). In Rio Grande do Sul State, Emater clearly defined the characteristics and production processes of Serrano cheese but failed to look closely enough at the knowledge and different working practices entailed. The area should be delimited so as to include the largest possible number of producers, and satisfy local players as to the legitimacy and credibility of classifying Serrano cheese as a GI. Failing that, Serrano cheese faces the same fate as French ‘chevrotin’ from the Alpes du Nord department, which acquired AOC22 status at the expense of its diversity and a good many local producers.

• 23  ICMS: Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadoria e sobre Prestação de Serviços (tax on circulation of (...)

28Emater did not take into account each category of player. Take middlemen, for instance. While the producers themselves usually supply local markets (formal or informal), the middlemen handle markets further afield. The advantage of this sort of trade is the informal supply chain: there are no taxes. The classification of Serrano cheese production will modify the status of intermediaries, blurring the lines between supply-chain members. Then there are the producers themselves. Today, producers are not organized, but operate on an informal basis, producing an “outlawed” dairy product. Each category of local player has different objectives. On the one hand, Emater wants to develop a GI to organize the cheese supply chain and help producers obtain added value and social recognition. On the other hand, producers have no real demand in the matter. Interviews highlighted the fact that the GI concept is misunderstood. Even Emater technicians tend to confuse the European GI labelling system with trademarks. Very few of them have grasped the full implications of GI, and producers, with little education to speak of, have little hope of understanding GI at all. Few people understand that GI requires compliance with product specifications and hygiene standards that may simply not be compatible with traditional modes of production and consumption. GI began as the primary objective of a top-down project. But to qualify for GI classification, producers will first have to legalize their production structure. For Cruz et al. (2008), Emater must first take into account the scale and regional diversity of cheese production in a bid to avoid the standardization of a traditional product. Note that, to comply with regulations, producers will have to build a cheese factory. Such a construction raises four issues: (i) it changes the social status of producers from farmer to entrepreneur; (ii) it requires considerable investment; (iii) it questions the scale of cheese production; and (iv) it fails to solve the problem of distributing cheese from Rio Grande do Sul to Santa Catarina State. Under Brazilian law, farmers are only entitled to sell unprocessed raw material. Selling processed products like cheese gives them the status of an enterprise, making them liable to pay the ICMS tax23 while also removing their entitlement to a farmer’s pension. Farmers whose children turn their back on the land hesitate to invest in a new production structure. Rural-urban migration is one of the topics for consideration by Emater technicians in the framework of the qualification project. It is pointless spending vast sums on the preservation of a small-scale production system – particularly when this would only benefit one generation. Brazilian hygiene inspection procedures operate on three levels: i) a municipal inspection system for farmers who sell their products within the locality; ii) a state inspection system for farmers who sell their products within the state; and iii) a federal inspection system for farmers who sell their products throughout Brazil. Emater tends to recommend the municipal inspection system for small family farmers who will take part in the project. But those who want to extend their distribution channel will approach tourist markets and outlets on the coast. Tourist markets are not located in the production area and coastal markets are in Santa Catarina State. Even with municipal inspection, Serrano cheese production will still be informal.