Geographical indications and value capture in the Indonesia coffee sector

Geographical Indications (GIs) are a form of collective intellectual property through which, it is anticipated, producers can capture the place-related value embodied within a product. As such, they are often promoted as a development initiative for lagging rural communities to improve livelihoods and alleviate poverty. This article applies the concepts of value capture and strategic coupling from the Global Production Networks (GPN) literature to assess the developmental impacts of formally-registered (protected) GIs in the Indonesian coffee sector. Based on an assessment of indicators along a logical impact pathway, our study finds little evidence, and a limited likelihood, of tangible economic benefits for coffee growers resulting from current GIs in Indonesia, at least in the immediate future. This poor developmental performance is explained in terms of the inability of local institutional settings supporting the GIs to strategically couple with the actor practices of lead firms in the coffee sector. The GIs, however, do appear to deliver intangible benefits for some stakeholders in terms of promoting a sense of regional pride and cultural identity. While one intention of GIs is to assert a moral claim over the geographical and cultural property embodied in consumer products, they require far greater engagement with extra-legal moral conventions throughout the value chain to achieve rural development outcomes. •Geographical Indications are not providing tangible economic benefits to producers in the Indonesian coffee sector.•The inability of to capture value is due to the poor alignment of the local institutional environment with lead firm strategies.•The institutional environment is path-dependent and further technical support is unlikley to achieve value capture.•Geographical Indications need to assert a moral claim over geographical and cultural property throughout the GPN.