Quality labels and institutional density in the agro-food sector: the case of Andalusia (Spain)

Abstract

This paper analyses the gradual increase on the use of quality labels in rural areas of Europe and the effect of Institutional Density (ID) over them within the agro-food sector. This producer’s strategy is related to three different but related processes: i) changes in the global markets, ii) new consumer patterns, iii) transformation of the rural policies. Such scenario partly explains the increase of labelling food products to add value as an economic strategy in rural areas, but not their success or failure. The contribution of this paper is to analyse representative cases of two different quality food labels: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Organic Agriculture (OA) in relation to the level of ID that supported their implementation. We chose Andalusia (Spain) due to the economic centrality of its agro-food sector and for being one of the European areaswith greater presence of development agencies. The data was collected during fieldwork, and quantitative and qualitative technique were implemented.