Quality labels and institutional density in the Agrofood sector: The case of Andalusia

Abstract

Our paper analyses the gradual increase of quality labels in rural areas of Europe and the effect of Institutional Density (ID) over them. This new producer’s strategy is related to three different but related processes: changes in the global markets and consumer patterns, and within the European Rural Policy. Such scenario partly explains the increase of labelling as a strategy inrural areas, but not their success or failure. The contribution of this paper is to analyse three different kinds of labels (Protected Designation of Origin, Organic Agriculture and Parque Natural de Andalucía) in relation to the grade of Institutional Density (ID). We chose to study the case of Andalucía (Spain), a region characterized by economic centrality of agro-industry and for being one of the European areas with greater presence of institutional development agencies. The data was collected during fieldwork, and quantitative and qualitative techniques were implemented