Participatory Guarantee Systems Vs Official Certification System. When People Want To Take Part Of It...

Summary

There are many initiatives of short food supply chains in Spain that have been implementing participatory guarantee systems, with great involvement of producers and, in some cases, consumers. In this context, a research have been developed to systematize the procedures under which 8 Spanish and 1 French PGS have developed, to assess conformity under a participatory approach involving local communities. Through the review of the documentation provided by the initiatives, we have analyzed the procedures and tools that are shared among the experiences, that allow them to be identified as PGS. We highlight the way these initiatives understand confidence building as a matter of collective implication and involvement at local scale. To identify the differences between a guarantee system as a participatory and collective, and that impose by the official regulation of the third party certification, we have generated a comparative table to highlight the main differences between both systems.