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

Ord River

Atherton Tablelands and Daintree

Sunshine Coast Granite Belt Northern Rivers

Yarra Valley

King Island and Tasmania

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