Productive practices of companies, conventions and rural territorial development: case study of the Spanish wine PDO Méntrida
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Abstract
The context of this study is the use of Protected Designation of Origins (PDO) as potential tools for the development of impoverished rural areas. In addition to its potential for promoting processes of rural territorial development (RTD), for economic actors the PDO scheme represents a differentiation to their products, increasing their added value and helping producers to sell more. The objective of this article is to study how economic actors of a PDO are able to foster RTD processes through the several production practices and business strategies they use to innovate and compete in global markets. The following article addresses the current debate about Protected Designations of Origin (PDO) as potential tools for the development of impoverished rural areas. The starting point is the consideration of PDOs as a catalyst for Rural Territorial Development (RTD), which legitimizes local products helping producers to sell them more and better.
The theoretical framework chosen for the analysis is the ‘conventions theory’, which has proved to be very useful in assessing the non-economic aspects governing the production, marketing and consumption of food products. Surveys and interviews to local actors were applied in the case study selected – the Spanish wine PDO Méntrida – and the productive behaviors identified were classified according to ‘conventions’. From the analysis of the results, the paper concludes that certain entrepreneurial attitudes – here understood as conventions – if combined, are beneficial for the promotion of RTD processes.