French Quality and Ecolabelling Schemes 399as does organic labelling (Agriculture Biologique, in France). Both types of labelling
schemes are gaining in importance for food products on both sides of the Atlantic.
In comparison to environmental schemes, farmers in France tend to engage more
easily in food quality schemes because of the price premiums consumers are often
willing to pay for quality products. Although the standard guidelines of food quality
schemes do not include any environment guarantees, consumers tend to associate
quality food products with environmentally friendly farming practices, partly due to
unclear market signals (Pujol and Dron, 1998).
As France, other EU countries, North America and other parts of the world
place greater emphasis on schemes which reward farmers for environmental stew-
ardship – both through the market and through government stewardship pay-
ments – it is important to know whether these ‘quality’ and ‘ecolabelling’ schemes
do, indeed, provide measurable environmental benefits. If they do, policies can be
implemented to foster and encourage these schemes, in which some portion of the
incentive for farmer adoption comes through price premiums. Otherwise, a policy
conclusion might be that though the schemes have possible health, taste or other
consumer benefits, they should not be relied on for substantial environmental
benefits. An alternative possible policy conclusion is that perhaps the criteria for
eligibility and certification with these schemes should be broadened or strength-
ened to bring about greater environmental benefits.
In his theoretical analysis of the relationship between food quality and envi-
ronmental quality, Thiébaut (1995) points out three possible levels where the rela-
tionship can be observed:
- at the territorial level, there can be joint production of final quality food prod-
ucts and environmental services (e.g. wine and landscape); - at the farmer’s level, there can be simultaneous production of quality food
products and environmental goods (e.g. positive externalities or reduction of
negative externalities); - at the consumer’s level, there can be joint demand for quality food and protec-
tion of the environment.
Kephaliacos and Robin (2003) suggest another way to look at the relationship
between food quality and environmental quality. They suggest analyses at the input
level (e.g. not allowing certain joint inputs) and at the output level (e.g. the nature
of interdependencies between the quantities or characteristics of the outputs). Our
study’s main objective was to analyse the extent of the relationship between food
quality and output quality at the farmer’s level by looking at the production proc-
ess and at the nature of the outputs.
Girardin and Sardet (2002) examine the potential environmental output
effects of eight different sets of standards proposed for European farmers. By exam-
ining the nature of the input level standards (rather than using data from actual
farms), they found ‘organic agriculture’ and ‘integrated production’ to have rela-
tively high potential for producing positive environmental outputs. Although