Transcript Australia*s Regions and Agriculture: Can Geographical

Australia’s Regions and Agriculture: Can
Geographical Indications Help?
Peter Drahos
European Policy for IP 10th annual conference
3 September 2015
172 interviews
• fish and seafood: snapper, abalone, wild barramundi, wild
salmon, farmed salmon, trout, oysters, lobster, squid, eel,
scallops, whiting, prawns, crab, seaweed, redclaw
• livestock industries: beef, pork, lamb, wallaby, poultry, eggs
• dairy: milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt; buffalo milk, cheese,
yoghurt
• fruit, vegetables, pulses, seeds and nuts: apples, avocado,
bananas, berries, cherries, table grapes, grapefruit,
oranges, mangoes, lemons, melons, pears, pineapples,
strawberries, beans, peas, chickpeas, macadamias, cocoa,
vanilla, chia, olive oil, stone fruit varieties for canning
• grasses and fungi: sugarcane, truffles, mushrooms
• beverages: wine, tea, whisky, spirits, liqueurs, coffee.
GEOGRAPHICAL SITES
Atherton
Tablelands
and Daintree
Ord River
Sunshine Coast Gra
Belt
Northern Rivers
Yarra Valley
King Island and Tas
Supermarkets as Brand Regulators- the
Response of Farmers
• ‘What’s the good of having a unique product if you
have to supply to those pricks’.
• If you supply bulk tonnage to Woolies/Coles you are
locked into them. You end up being big, but you
don’t make any money (Respondent #38).
The 85% rule
GIs as mechanisms of regional development –
what do we learn from the wine story?
• Reciprocal Spillovers – the Granite Belt Story
• The registration of the Granite Belt GI in 2002
was seen as an important breakthrough:
• ‘it’s given us our own identity’ (Respondent
#18).
• Investment in Quality Effect – the Yarra Valley
Story
• How generalizable? – the Veblen goods issue
The King Island Story
King Island Dairy
• We’re really price takers now. It used to be that we could
negotiate our contracts [with King Island Dairy]. This year
though, it pretty much just got slapped on the table.
• There was no room to negotiate. As dairy farmers, we
don’t get any more for our milk than any dairy farmer on
the mainland selling to anyone, even though our milk
goes into premium products (Respondent #113).
• King Island Dairy – registered as a word mark
see Trade Mark : 1400499
• King Island Company
• King Island Company part of Lion Dairy, part of
Lion, Lion emerged out Lion Nathan Foods.
• Ultimate owner of Lion is Kirin Holding Co.
King Island Beef
• JBS Swift part of JBS, world’ largest meat
processing company – revenues of over $40
billion.
• 1. GIs are contingently beneficial.
• 2. They may trigger reciprocal spillovers and
investment-in-quality effects.
• 3. Iconic products are more likely to trigger these
effects.
• 4. GI has to be organizationally supported in a way that
allows for scale in marketing.
• ‘where would $1600 go if we had to market ourselves?’
• ‘It isn’t necessarily competition between ourselves, it is
us competing with the likes of Mars Bars’
• If successful GI becomes a regional asset for
future generations
• In Australia supermarkets and large processors
dominate value chains using trade marks.
Would GIs change this?
• GIs may also be a credible form of signalling
in consumer markets - eg clean and green
production, what is local.
• William van Caenegem, Peter Drahos, Jen Cleary,
Provenance of Australian Food Products: is there a
place for Geographical Indications?
• Rural Industries Research and Development
Corporation, Australia Government; Canberra,
Australia, 2015,
• available at
https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/15-060