412 Localized Food Systems
use of environmental practices. The resolution of that issue depends greatly on the
extent to which quality and ecolabels can send clear and reasonably reliable market
signals to consumers who are willing to pay for environmental goods provided
jointly with food products.
Due to the problem of information overload, an ecolabel’s success in the mar-
ketplace also depends on its ability to capture consumers’ attention (Bougherara
and Grolleau, 2002). This suggests that if quality label schemes are to have more
emphasis on environmental criteria than in the past, market value may be enhanced
by emphasizing, in labels and advertising, those environmental benefits that are
verifiable and in which consumers are most interested. For example, our results
showed that farms participating in quality and ecolabelling schemes performed
better with respect to plant and animal diversity than did non-participating farms.
Biological diversity has growing public appeal, because of desirable landscape
implications and a multitude of other environmental benefits, and consumers may
be willing to pay some modest price premiums for food products they are con-
vinced result from farming systems that add to biodiversity.
Ecolabelling based on regionally identified quality products represents a poten-
tially attractive market incentive approach to help improve farmers’ environmental
stewardship. Nevertheless, the future of this approach depends on CAP reforms
and discussions within the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the Trade-related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. There is no clear indi-
cation whether the EU is working towards a global policy of product quality and
origin, which is needed in order to improve the credibility of consumer informa-
tion. Such a policy would be costly to implement, as it requires a general consensus
and the integration of highly interdependent factors – for example, the technical
definition of a product, the definition of its typicity and consumer knowledge of
these definitions (Barjolle and Sylvander, 2000). Moreover, political conditions for
the emergence of such a policy are not yet in place, due to important pressure on
the WTO coming from the ‘new’ world, lead by countries like Australia and the
US, and from Latin America, There is a clear distinction between the ‘old’ and the
‘new’ world’s views regarding quality product labelling. While the ‘old’ world is
defending the recognition of the commercial value of labels, which seek to link
products of quality to their geographical origin, the ‘new’ world tends to condemn
such labels as simply another trade barrier.
Although ecolabelled food products can command price premiums, as evi-
denced especially by organic crop and animal products in many countries, it will
be difficult to create and sustain substantial price premiums based on environmen-
tal benefits for products mass marketed (Giraud, 2002). Since a large portion of
food purchases are made in supermarkets, market signals alone are unlikely to be
sufficient to induce socially efficient levels of environmental quality on the agricul-
tural land masses of European and north American countries. Stewardship payments
to farmers under national agrienvironmental programmes, together with increased
regulatory powers, also will be necessary to achieve some of the multifunctionality
expectations now being placed on agriculture in industrialized countries.