Indicação geográfica e construção do mercado: a valorização da origem no Cerrado mineiro

Abstract

Geographic Indication (GI) comes as a protection tool to farmers and has been becoming in a qualification process that links the product to the environmental and social characteristics of its origin. In this way, qualification goes beyond the technical aspects and denotes an intense process of dispute and negotiations, generating productivity, political and territorial reorganizations, as it brings to the origin the efforts of coordination of activities and qualification that were performed by the industry. Hence, the thesis shows a reading of the appearance of the GIs and the valorization of the origin like a building process of the coffee market from the case study of the GI in the Mineiro Cerrado. The GIs have been used differently in different countries and sectors; including, paradoxically, typically commoditized sectors, like the one of the coffee. Thus, the GIs can have different meanings (economical, political and symbolic), according to the local differences, the type of product or market and even of the form how they are organized. By emphasizing the value of its origin, the Mineiro Cerrado region could overcome an unfavourable situation, in which the coffee produced in the region was sold as one of lower quality. With an increased activity to gather efforts of local farmers and organizations, the region became to be recognized as coffee producer with top qualities, something that awarded it the condition to be the second Brazilian GI. This change comes from a negotiation process and conventions around the specificities of quality, whose results are fruits of consensus and agreements about quality until reaching the official recognition. The existence of the GI in the Mineiro State is justified by the geographic and environmental specificities, that in the studied case, showed that it relies on a serie of factors, as its organization and articulation around the formation of the market by the producers, with the objective of consolidating its reputation among the intermediaries and the consumers. Although the preservation of the traditions have had an important role in the justification for the GIs formation, the research showed that the innovations brought by the market (regarding the product evaluation, organization etc) had fundamental importance for the recognition of their quality attributes.