The Contribution of Geographical Certification Programs to Farm Income and Rural Economies: The Case of Pecorino Siciliano PDO

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

As a contribution and in order to improve the document and under the objective of the study to analyze the economic influence of the use of protected designations of origin and territorial quality indicators, I recommend giving more emphasis to the commercial approach of said certifications and to the predisposition of the payment of distributors and consumers.

Regarding the same methodology, it is not the most appropriate method to analyze the influence of these quality indicators on the price or on the marketing of agri-food products.

Although, this work also sheds light on the study hypothesis.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

We would like to thank you for your thoughtful comments on our manuscript. We made every effort to address each comment thoroughly. In attempting to fully respond to your remarks, we had to take into account what other referees asked us to do. However, below you will find a reply to your comments.

In response to your first comment, “I recommend giving more emphasis to the commercial approach of said certifications and to the predisposition of the payment of distributors and consumers” we have added much more information to the beginning of our paper on Willingness to Pay and marketing studies conducted on GI labels, especially in section 2.2 Documented benefits gained from GI certification. Furthermore, we have tried to describe a framework of the consumer-benefit oriented studies in the literature and the producer-benefit studies. Although our study seeks to concentrate on producers, we try to show that they are two sides of the same issue throughout the paper.

We have also tried to better explain our methodology, and how it fits in with other GI benefit analysis and valuation methods. We have deeply researched the valuation and appraisal terms hope to made a traditional Italian method relevant to a wider audience by explaining how it fits in with a more international and general vision of sustainable value chains.

We hope that our efforts have been put to good use and thank you again for your help.

Sincerely,

authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is very interesting and provides an internal evaluation of the added value of PDO for producers.

I regret that the literature review is mainly focused on the Italian case despite many researches in different product categories and countries.

I suggest to focus the literature review on papers that evaluated the consumer's willingness to pay and GI performances. for examples:

Garavaglia, C., & Mariani, P. (2017). How much do consumers value protected designation of origin certifications? Estimates of willingness to pay for PDO dry‐cured ham in Italy. Agribusiness, 33(3), 403-423.

Arfini, F., & Bellassen, V. (Eds.). (2019). Sustainability of European Food Quality Schemes: Multi-Performance, Structure, and Governance of PDO, PGI, and Organic Agri-Food Systems. Springer Nature.

I suggest to reduce or to delete the history of the European regulation of Geographical Indications (from line 126 to 140).

in the chapter 3 instead of general aspects, it would be more useful to present the case of pecorino cheese in general including the other Italian area that produce the same product (Pecorino Romano) and  identify the main differences that could be used to differentiate the Sicilian production.

please correct the 3.3 title PDO

I do not understand why capital interest is included in the cost as it is a family enterprise. this could be part of the final profit that belongs to the owner?

I think that in table 1 authors calculate a processing cost instead of processing price.

The sentence in line 525 and 526 is non-correct. the cost is higher than the price?

In my opinion chapter 5 has to be reconstructed in order to avoid presenting the same data twice. it should begin with a presentation of the two companies and then the comparative table.

Finally, I think that this paper is too long and should be shortened. The objective is to compare the milk valorization with and without PDO certification. so maybe a table presenting the benefice Vs the cost could be useful to summarize the results.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

We would like to thank you for your thoughtful comments on our manuscript. We made every effort to address each comment thoroughly. In attempting to fully respond to your remarks, we had to take into account what other referees asked us to do. However, below you will find a reply to your comments.

1. I regret that the literature review is mainly focused on the Italian case despite many researches in different product categories and countries. I suggest to focus the literature review on papers that evaluated the consumer's willingness to pay and GI performances. for examples: Garavaglia, C., & Mariani, P. (2017). How much do consumers value protected designation of origin certifications? Estimates of willingness to pay for PDO dry‐cured ham in Italy. Agribusiness, 33(3), 403-423. Arfini, F., & Bellassen, V. (Eds.). (2019). Sustainability of European Food Quality Schemes: Multi-Performance, Structure, and Governance of PDO, PGI, and Organic Agri-Food Systems. Springer Nature.

You will see that our bibliography is much larger and contains several non-Italian authors. However, we chose articles that are relevant to out methods and the issues faced by the producers in our case study. Of course, many Italian authors have dealt with these issues. We have added much more information to the beginning of our paper on Willingness to Pay and marketing studies conducted on GI labels, especially in section 2.2 Documented benefits gained from GI certification. Furthermore, we have tried to describe a framework of the consumer-benefit oriented studies in the literature and the producer-benefit studies. Although our study seeks to concentrate on producers, we try to show that they are two sides of the same issue throughout the paper. Your references were very helpful suggestion and we have included them. Thank you.

2. I suggest to reduce or to delete the history of the European regulation of Geographical Indications (from line 126 to 140).

We have reduced this section but feel that some explanation is pertinent (section 2.1).

3. in the chapter 3 instead of general aspects, it would be more useful to present the case of pecorino cheese in general including the other Italian area that produce the same product (Pecorino Romano) and  identify the main differences that could be used to differentiate the Sicilian production.

We have added a section discussing the differences and similarities between all Italian PDO Pecorino cheeses, and have discussed the specific case of Pecorino Romano (section 3.1) and have added an Appendix with each cheese’s permitted types, characteristics, production and export volume and producer numbers.

4. please correct the 3.3 title PDO

This was addressed, along with other typos and refining of the technical terms used.

5. I do not understand why capital interest is included in the cost as it is a family enterprise. this could be part of the final profit that belongs to the owner?

Our method uses the pure entrepreneur so that results between different kinds of firms can be compared. This is standard practice in the valuation methodology we used. We have explained our methodology much more thoroughly in section 4.2.

6. I think that in table 1 authors calculate a processing cost instead of processing price. The sentence in line 525 and 526 is non-correct. the cost is higher than the price?

We hope that we have made this clearer in section 4.2. We intend price as a unit term, while cost is comprehensive.

7. In my opinion chapter 5 has to be reconstructed in order to avoid presenting the same data twice. it should begin with a presentation of the two companies and then the comparative table.

We have followed your advice.

8. Finally, I think that this paper is too long and should be shortened. The objective is to compare the milk valorization with and without PDO certification. so maybe a table presenting the benefice Vs the cost could be useful to summarize the results.

We have shortened where possible, but also felt it was necessary to enrich context parts of the paper (also in response to other reviewers’ comments). We have added table 3 thanks to your suggestion.

We hope that our efforts have been put to good use and thank you again for your help.

Sincerely,

authors

Reviewer 3 Report

About the submission with the title "The contribution of geographical certification programs to farms’ returns and rural economies: the case of Pecorino Siciliano PDO" I have the following suggestions:

 

The manuscript is interesting and addresses a relevant topic, however, the main weakness is about the methodology adopted for the empirical analysis in the sections 4 and 5 and this problem is visible since the abstract where it was not presented any clear explanation about the methodology followed. In fact, it is not enough to present some tables with the accounting results of two farms. It was expected something more scientific and more robust to work these values, involving, for example DEA approaches or others.

 

Another question is about the lack of concern with the use of some concepts. For example, in the abstract when appears "...to positively influence the price of certified products and the incomes of their producers." this can only be assessed through a mathematical model and respective estimation. Other aspect is "The economic 20 convenience of the total transformation of sheep milk into Pecorino Siciliano PDO and ricotta is 21 also estimated.", but I was unable to find any estimation.

 

The paper needs to be rewriten to be more rigorous about the use of some concepts and improve significantly the methodology used for the empirical sections.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

We would like to thank you for your thoughtful comments on our manuscript. We made every effort to address each comment thoroughly. In attempting to fully respond to your remarks, we had to take into account what other referees asked us to do. However, below you will find a reply to your comments.

1. The manuscript is interesting and addresses a relevant topic, however, the main weakness is about the methodology adopted for the empirical analysis in the sections 4 and 5 and this problem is visible since the abstract where it was not presented any clear explanation about the methodology followed. In fact, it is not enough to present some tables with the accounting results of two farms. It was expected something more scientific and more robust to work these values, involving, for example DEA approaches or others.

Although we cannot change our methodology, we have tried to place it in more context by discussing the many approaches to assessing the benefits derived from GIs by consumers, producers, and local areas (section 2.2 Documented benefits gained from GI certification). Our study is a case study of two dairy farms, and so is not the venue for robust models. However, this is an approach to studying the producer’s issues.

2. Another question is about the lack of concern with the use of some concepts. For example, in the abstract when appears "...to positively influence the price of certified products and the incomes of their producers." this can only be assessed through a mathematical model and respective estimation. Other aspect is "The economic convenience of the total transformation of sheep milk into Pecorino Siciliano PDO and ricotta is also estimated.", but I was unable to find any estimation.

We have also tried to better explain our methodology, and how it fits in with other GI benefit analysis and valuation methods. We have revised our use of terms further studying the appropriate valuation and appraisal terms. Although we used a traditional Italian method, we hope to make it relevant to a wider audience by explaining how it fits in with a more international and general vision of sustainable value chains.

3. The paper needs to be rewritten to be more rigorous about the use of some concepts and improve significantly the methodology used for the empirical sections.

You will see that we have rewritten almost every secretion of our paper, and have paid particular attention to citing appropriate methodological references. Our study is a case study, not a large survey. As such, we hope that it has brought up significant issues by going in depth that can be further explored in the future.

We hope that our efforts have been put to good use and thank you again for your help.

Sincerely,

authors

Reviewer 4 Report

In the introductory part of the article, the authors mentioned the existence of an institution / organization, entitled "protection consortia". Please provide more details on the role of this institution in supporting farmers who certify their products with the help of European quality schemes. Is this institution specific only to Italy?

The research area is represented by south western Sicily, a depressed area of Italy. According to its definition, a depressed area is a region suffering from industrial decline, resulting in a  high unemployment rate and low income per capita (significantly lower than the national average). The authors should better explain why the study area is a disadvantaged area and what are the elements that lead to the inclusion of the region in such a category.

In- text citations are missing between lines 157-166.

In the third section of the article, entitled "The economic context of the sheep-farming supply chain", the  authors of the study highlighted the difficulties facing the sector due to price fluctuations. Are these fluctuations determined by the demand for certified cheese with quality schemes on the international market?

State intervention to solve this crisis was also mentioned. Was the EU executive aware of the difficult situation of sheep milk producers in Italy? How concerned was the European Commission about the difficult situation of Italian farmers? 

In- text citations are missing between lines 264-271. The same observation for the paragraphs between lines 276-284; 305-329.

In the section 4.1, the authors should justify the choose of the two cheese-producing dairy farms for the case studies. How were they selected? According to which criteria?

Concerning the research instrument, I suggest tu use the term "interview guide" instead of questionnaire. I understood that the method used was the face to face interview. Please give more details about this: it was a semi-structured interview? What kind of questions were used? (A common practice in semi-structured interviews is to lead with open-ended questions, which are questions that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Based on the answers, the interviewer will ask follow-up questions to draw out more specific evidence about the candidate's assets). 

Please, specify the duration of the interview and the steps and methods used for data analysis.

The results are clearly presented.

The discussion part is totally missing. This section should highlight the meaning, the importance and the relevance of your results. It should focus on explaining and evaluating what you found, showing how it relates to your literature review and research questions, and making an argument in support of your overall conclusion.

The practical implications of the study are also missing. These aspects represent one of the most significant parts of a research paper.

The paper has a good potential to be improved and published after the review process.

 

 

 

Author Response

Reviewer 4

We would like to thank you for your thoughtful comments on our manuscript. We made every effort to address each comment thoroughly. In attempting to fully respond to your remarks, we had to take into account what other referees asked us to do. However, below you will find a reply to your comments.

1. In the introductory part of the article, the authors mentioned the existence of an institution / organization, entitled "protection consortia". Please provide more details on the role of this institution in supporting farmers who certify their products with the help of European quality schemes. Is this institution specific only to Italy?

We have more fully explained the role and legal basis for producer associations and the Consortia recognized by the Italian government and given special responsibilities. See section 2.2 , lines 222 – 241 as well as other sections of the paper that mention Consortiums role and importance.

2. The research area is represented by south western Sicily, a depressed area of Italy. According to its definition, a depressed area is a region suffering from industrial decline, resulting in a  high unemployment rate and low income per capita (significantly lower than the national average). The authors should better explain why the study area is a disadvantaged area and what are the elements that lead to the inclusion of the region in such a category.

We have better defined the terminology used to describe the studied area, and explained the policy basis of our definitions. See section 4.1, lines 482-511. A map of “internal areas” was also added in fig. 2.

3. In- text citations are missing between lines 157-166.

Resolved.

4. In the third section of the article, entitled "The economic context of the sheep-farming supply chain", the  authors of the study highlighted the difficulties facing the sector due to price fluctuations. Are these fluctuations determined by the demand for certified cheese with quality schemes on the international market?

We have gone much more into depth about the problems of price fluctuations, especially regarding Pecorino Romano. See section 3.1.

State intervention to solve this crisis was also mentioned. Was the EU executive aware of the difficult situation of sheep milk producers in Italy? How concerned was the European Commission about the difficult situation of Italian farmers? 

This is also directly addressed in section 3.1, along with new developments related to the Covid-19 pandemic. See lines 275-309.

5. In- text citations are missing between lines 264-271. The same observation for the paragraphs between lines 276-284; 305-329.

While the first was addresses, the second case refers to the Product Specification which are already cited at the beginning of the paragraph at the top of section 3.4.

6. In the section 4.1, the authors should justify the choose of the two cheese-producing dairy farmsfor the case studies. How were they selected? According to which criteria?

We added a section explaining our choice of the two case studies in section 4.1. First we discuss the area that we concentrate on, and then the choice of the specific dairy farms.

7. Concerning the research instrument, I suggest you use the term "interview guide" instead of questionnaire. I understood that the method used was the face to face interview. Please give more details about this: it was a semi-structured interview? What kind of questions were used? (A common practice in semi-structured interviews is to lead with open-ended questions, which are questions that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Based on the answers, the interviewer will ask follow-up questions to draw out more specific evidence about the candidate's assets). 

Yes, it was a semi-structured interview. Most of the questions were closed, with the exception of the views and opinions of the producers. Although interview guide is of course also appropriate, we used the term “interview schedule” as it corresponds with the reference guide to Social Research we have on hand and could cite in the paper (Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods. Oxford university press.)

8. Please, specify the duration of the interview and the steps and methods used for data analysis.

The steps in the interview and duration are explained in section 4.1.

9. The results are clearly presented.

Thank you.

10. The discussion part is totally missing. This section should highlight the meaning, the importance and the relevance of your results. It should focus on explaining and evaluating what you found, showing how it relates to your literature review and research questions, and making an argument in support of your overall conclusion.

A separate discussion was added in section 6. We have done our best to shed light on the meaning and importance of our case studies and connect our findings with the literature.

11. The practical implications of the study are also missing. These aspects represent one of the most significant parts of a research paper.

Practical implications for producers and researchers have been emphasized to the conclusions.

We hope that our efforts have been put to good use and thank you again for your help.

Sincerely,

authors

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The new version of the paper is quite good. I am happy about the improuvement provided.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your comments on our paper. 

Best wishes,

 

Reviewer 3 Report

I suggest the authors highlight the main limitations and how this study brings value added for the scientific literature.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

Thank you for your second comments on our paper. We have done our best to take them into account.

In response to your suggestion to “highlight the main limitations and how this study brings value added for the scientific literature”, we have more clearly organized our Conclusions and added a few phrases so that the information you requested becomes more evident. Specifically, see lines 981-1010 in the word file for the new additions.

Best regards,

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,
After the first round of reviewing process, the paper was significantly improved according to reviewers suggestions. Congratulations for your very informative and well written work, I enjoyed its reading! The value added of the paper is mostly represented by the practical implications for rural economy and for the society.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4,

Thank you for your comments on our paper. We are very happy you enjoined reading it!

Best wishes,