Adapting

Climate upheavals are making what were once exceptional events, such as drought or epizootic diseases, more and more frequent. At the same time, consumer demands are changing. They expect products under SIQO to go beyond their initial promises, of course still offering a guarantee of authenticity and overall quality associated with real taste pleasure, but also being exemplary in terms of respect for the environment and animal welfare.

To enable production under SIQO to endure and continue to generate value, both the practices of ODGs and the content of specifications must adapt, while preserving the authenticity and strong identity characteristics of products. Thus, the action plans already launched in 2022 are being structured to bring balanced changes to specifications, offering flexibility without compromising on fundamentals.

This is particularly the case in viticulture, where a strategy for adapting to climate change has been drawn up by several players: INAO, INRAe, FranceAgriMer, the Comité National des Interprofessions des Vins à appellation d'origine et à indication géographique, and the Institut Français de la Vigne et du Vin. The first concrete initiatives include the introduction of Varieties of Interest for Adaptation (VIFA), the exceptional derogation in 2022 from the target yield, and the forthcoming discussions within the AOV committee on the probationary evaluation procedure, enabling innovations to be tested without losing the benefit of appellations, provided they respect a defined framework and can be reversed if they prove unsuitable. The summary of experiments carried out to adapt to climate change in the field by research, inter-professional players or technical institutes should also feed into the holding of regional meetings in the form of a Climat tour in the autumn.

Work on sustainability is also underway in conjunction with food and wine federations (AOC as well as IGP), based on internal work at INAO but also players such as CNAOL (Conseil national des appellations d'origine laitière) with the plan AOP laitières durables or FEVAO (fédération des viandes AOP de France).

To encourage exchanges and the essential transversality between sectors around these issues, which concern all SIQO players, the INAO will be organizing regional inter-ODG and inter-signes meetings in the spring. This is an opportunity to consolidate this dynamic of reflection and gradually lead to sustainable changes in specifications.

Communicating

Faced with the proliferation of labels, which now constitute a veritable "jungle" that risks losing consumers, strengthening communication is an essential focus. This is a real opportunity to assert the values of the INAO, but also the promises and assets of SIQO products, which echo consumer expectations: a guarantee of quality via an organized and transparent public system based on controls, a link to origin and specific quality, a collective commitment in the ODGs, where each operator participates in the life of the sign and the products.

Always in close collaboration with the federations, actions will be implemented to support the place of our labels, in order to accentuate the notoriety of the logos and recall what makes the strength, authenticity and originality of each of the SIQO.

Accompanying

Accompanying the players who make SIQO products live and thrive is at the heart of INAO's daily work, whether to support their activity or contribute to their reflections. At national level and in the field, INAO will remain an open structure, making its skills available beyond its regulatory role and its position as guarantor.

In 2022, this was notably the case to enable professionals engaged in organic production to better understand and assimilate the new and complex organic farming regulations, to protect signs from usurpation at national and international level, or to study requests for temporary modifications in the face of extreme drought and avian influenza. In 2023, this will be the case to support ODGs and their operators in putting these strategic orientations into practice.