Protecting feta won't make it betta

Last week the European Court of Justice ruled that only Greeks in Greece make feta and all other feta makers are fakes.

Now this may sound like more EU madness, and it is, but it is with intent and it is beginning to matter.

In 1992 the EU introduced a set of laws -- pushed, as usual, by the French -- which give geographic regions property rights over names and manufacturing processes originating from their region.

They argue that the rights of communities and farmers who "discovered" traditional foods were being violated by foreigners copying their technology and their names without compensation.

The initial battleground was wine, where the French (joined quickly by others) successfully sought exclusive rights to names of wine types such as Champagne, Burgundy and Cognac.  The process was subsequently expanded to over 700 food and drinks products including cheeses, pork pies, processed olives, potatoes, cider, Scottish farmed salmon, beer, wine and spices.  Another 300 applications are currently under consideration.

The process has many faults.  The rights do not go to those who invested in the product.  Instead they are collectively owned by all producers located in a specified region, no matter the quality of their product or their contribution to the industry.

The main aim has clearly been to protect inefficient, craft industries from innovative producers.

Greek feta producers continue to use the old methods using goat's milk cured in brine.

The Danish innovated upon this recipe, improving the product by using cows milk and modern processing technology.

Consumers, even Greek restaurants, increasingly prefer the Danish feta.  The EU's response was to ignore the consumer, protect the laggards and penalise the innovators.

This protected status was initially supposed to be restricted to names, but has expanded to sourcing and production processes.  For example, the specification for the curing of prosciutto is "by air reaching it through the Versillan Sea which, tempered by its passage through the olive groves and pine forest of the Val di Magra, dried in the Apennine passes and enriched in chestnut air".

This protection has been expanded even further up the prosciutto food chain, now requiring that the pigs be grown and sourced locally and that the ham be packaged and sliced locally.

To date the restrictions apply only within the EU.  However, the EU has been trying to force trading partners to accede to their rules and adopt their approach.  This has worked in the case of Australia wine industry, for which Europe is a major market.  The EU is now targeting the World Trade Organisation as a means of gaining extraterritorial coverage of their rules and approach.

At the next World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong the EU plans to push for the adoption of geographic and cultural rights.

Given that Frenchman Pascal Lamy -- a former EU Trade Minster and proponent of the cultural protectionism -- is the new WTO Commissioner, the EU will get a hearing.

Let's hope our trade negotiators do not fall for this nonsense.

It will not only further Balkanise world trade in food, but encourage the many protectionists within our own food sector.

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