Quantitative and qualitative effects of protecting traditional agro-food products by geographical indications.
Geographical Indications are protected names of products deriving from a limited geographic area, produced throughout history in a traditional unique way, by using local specific resources. They are much more than simple trademarks and today are considered as a model of rural areas development. The aim of this review paper is to emphasise the effects of agricultural products protection by Geographical Indications, in qualitative (e.g. improvement of rural population living quality) as in quantitative terms (e.g. added value that these products gain in agricultural market). Geographical Indications (GI) overcome the dimension of pure economic benefit for producers and expand the range of effects to consumers, rural areas, and to entire regions and countries. It is estimated that on global level more than 10,000 products are protected with GI. The sales value of GI products registered in EU-27 was estimated at €54.3 billion in 2010 at wholesale stage in the region of production. The whole value premium rate in EU-27 for GI products was estimated at 2.23, which means that GI products were sold 2.23 times as high as non-GI products. A growing body of evidence shows that typical and traditional products protection by the means of geographical indications has brought about multifaceted benefits to rural communities living in the areas of origin and contributed to improving their livelihoods and quality of life.