The creation of a democratic food certification : How the Slow Food Participatory Guarantee System attempts to defend local food systems and traditions

• Main Author: Borrelli, Greta
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia 2021
• Subjects: Participatory Guarantee System; Food certifications; Food standards; Organic movement; Organic certification; Slow Food; Presidia project; Biocultural heritage; Food heritage; Traditional food knowledge; Governmentality; Empowerment; Humanities and the Arts; Humaniora och konst
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-446157

This thesis explores if and how an alternative certification system for agricultural products, the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), could support small-scale farmers to preserve and promote biocultural and food heritage, linked to the landscape they inhabit, their identity as farmers and traditional knowledge. The PGS has been identified by Slow Food as an efficient low-cost and local 'bottom-up' quality assurance system, in order to develop their Presidia project and to re-embed agricultural productions within their traditional socio-ecological contexts. Small-holder farmers all over the world encounter problems in accessing conventional certification systems because of their complexity and strict quality compliance standards, which tend to marginalize this category of producers. I have critically analyzed the extent to which actors and stakeholders agree with the PGS core principles and if, and how, a well-formulated PGS certification can be regarded as a democratic process which fulfils its broader goals. In order to re-structure society from an agri-food perspective, towards a more democratic governance, the core problem lays in how standards and certifications are formed, assessed and applied. The crux of this study is to examine the degree to which a different type of governance, such as the PGS, can induce democratic and participatory methods of food certification. I have conducted semi-structured interviews with various local actors who belong to the social field of alternative food productions underneath the umbrella of Slow Food. Here I investigate the social dimension, the debate and comprehension of the PGS, and the concept of Governmentality by Foucault, as applied to Presidia. In the thesis I show that the PGS provide social benefits to local communities that undergo this certification process. The PGS is able to contribute to the creation of solidarity among actors within the food system, designing a transparent certification system against the logic of commodification.