Geographic Indications
Synonyms
Appellations; Appellations of origin; Certification marks; Collective marks; Designations of origin; Denominations of origin; Geographic indications; GIs; Marks; PDO; PGI; Trademarks
Introduction
In the production of commodities, each producer of a particular good is a direct competitor to every other producer of that same good, a situation known as the commodity trap. To avoid the commodity trap, where price is the only differentiating characteristic amongst similar products, farmers have long joined collective marketing arrangements, coming together to cooperatively differentiate their products from others’, thereby increasing their incomes (Wolf 1944). Geographic indications (GIs), although not new, are an increasingly popular instrument of such collective marketing arrangements amongst producers and exporters of agri-food products. In 2009, there were more than 10,000 protected GIs in use globally whose estimated trade value exceeded US$50 billion (Giovannucci et al. 2009)...
References
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