REGIONS FOR ECONOMIC CHANGE

Workshop 3C

‘Bringing economic diversification to rural areas’

Carlo Ricci Bruxelles, 8 March 2007

Adding value to local products

Nightmares of agriculture in the nineties

• Collapse of prices of undiversified products (raw materials)

• Increased dependence on farming subsidies, which are due to be gradually phased out over time

• Inexorable decline in jobs and farms number (inability to attract young people)

Added value of a product

It is essentially based on 3 categories of factors:

Territorial identity

Human resourcesRaw materials

Local races or varieties (biodiversity)

Professionalism (tastiness, healthiness, imagine ….)

Typicalness, uniqueness …..

Territorial strategies for adding valueThey are based on “cycles” of support actions:

Characterization

Protection

Marketing

Field researches and studies

Pilot projects Awarenes

s raising

Technical support

and training

Incentivizing

virtuous behaviour

sVoluntary regulation

s

Territorial labels

Newtworking to sell on short and long

distribution

channels

Promotion

The situation today

• Meat, milk, cereals and forage cost today as 15 years ago (profitability of all raw material is more or less decreasing)

• Despite specific policies, the human resources hemorrhage from agriculture keeps on

Which rural areas in 2013?….. and which strategies to add value today?

We have to take into account that in last 10 years radical cultural changes have affected mental maps and behaviours of the main players of this game:

Consumers, policy makers ( both at central and local level), farmers

Consumers of 2000

• Curious: searching authentic experiences more than products

• Realist: (very) careful to the quality/price ratio of the product/service

• Social: interested in relationships and situations that create “community”

• And then,…… well informed (very),…… autonomous (they feel like deciding),……..(last but not least!) ethical….

The gastronaut(1) metamodel of a consumptiom style

• Territory is a metaphoric place fruit of a collective culture that produces symbolic values.

• The “gastronomic layers” are real cultural assets.

• Tradition is a successful innovation.

• Landscape preservation is the better territorial origin protection for products.

……..about territory:

• "The man is an omnivor that eats meat, vegetables and imaginary."

• “To eat the territory” is the tension to know and to sniff

….and about gastronautic consumers:

(1) Davide Paolini “Carta del gastronauta”, www.gastronauta.com

Policy makers

• More aware of the value of gastronomic identity for territory

• All careful to tourism (and territorial image)

• Have changed perception on farmers: from protected (and monitored) category to territorial marketing factor/partners

Wine routes in Italy(2)

• 100 wine routes involving 1.135 municipalities (14% of Italian municipalities)

• 4 millions wine tourists (increasing 6% per year) with 2.000 millions euro of tourist consumption related to wine

• 1.400 public bodies e around 6.000 private actors involved(2) “IV Rapporto sul Turismo del Vino”, Censis Servizi S.p.a. 2004

Lessons from the most resourceful producers

• Strongly trust in the “Territory” that is the potential represented by the local wealth of identity and specificity.

• Without any inhibition towards the market.

Mentality change

• To develop the local productions that can bring added value

• To improve professionalism in processing and marketing

• To reach the "valley side" of the food chain to directly manage commercial relations

Change in business orientation

Today everyone of these actors perceives that the rural territory is called to answer new needs

• Of quality and safety of products

• Of preservation of environmental components as biodiversity, cultural identity and landscape, otherwise destined to disappear

• Of use of the leisure time and of “rural experience”

• Of residency of more or less temporary kind

Source: monitor alimentare, DOXA 2003

0% 20% 40% 60%

Importanza

1

Fa

tto

ri

Main factors of reliability of a typical product according to Italian consumers

Trust in the purchaseplace

Trust in the producer

Controls

Quality of rawmaterials+ trust in theregion of production

Quality: certification or trust raising?

“Responsible” consumption in Italy(3)

• 36% of consumers practises kinds of “responsible purchase”

• Since 1994 to 2005 the number of solidarity purchase groups of citizens (Gas) passed from zero to 220

• The association Slow-food (a sort of WWF for typical foods) has 35.000 members, 360 clubs e 200 “garrisons”

(3) “Scegliere bene”, indagine Iref-ACLI, 2004

The consumer: Client or partner?

….. and other new trends in European Countries

Italian “Wine routes” weaknesses

• Agreement among partners on strategies and programs

• Public subventions raising

• Quality of welcoming in the firms

• Structural lacks (tasting points and sale networks)

• Scarce presence of museums and wine galleries

Territorial planning: Government or governance?