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Comment by andreareina | Hacker News Reader

> He is furious with the failure of the Spanish government to protect jamón’s integrity and allow native blackfoot pigs to be exported to the United States.

> Martínez rejects the argument that, as a variety, the blackfoot pig can’t be protected by a denomination the way champagne and parmesan cheese are, pointing out that the Japanese wagyu enjoys just this sort of protection.

They are trying to set limits on where the pig is allowed to be brought. Not "the pigs must be from so-and-so region to be Iberian blackfoot pigs", but "Iberian blackfoot pigs must not be allowed to be exported [from Iberia I suppose?]". I'd say that copyright and software licenses are an apt metaphor for what they're trying to do.

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But then again, they (spanish) have no problem buying around 90% of the portuguese production of purebred black iberian pigs, undercutting local producers and then calling it their own.

I couldn't find figures, but remember from talks from producers that around 30-40% of Spanish Iberian Ham is actually from portuguese pigs raised in alentejo (the 90% figure above can be found in export reports, the 30-40% is hearsay from talking and negotiating with the producers a few years ago)

I’m Spanish and didn’t know this. Thanks for mentioning it.

Hey, no problem. I might even be wrong in those values, but were the ones I found.

4-5 years ago I was working with a lot of breeders here, and they all complained that the 'low' development work was done by them, but the 'high' product as the smoked/dried hams were from spanish producers.

Portugal always had this issue where we can 'produce' the lower chain stuff, but getting into the higher chain marketplace has been an issue. It is a shame really.

But having said that, I lived in the south of Spain (andalucia) for a while, and I love you guys. Even if you pretend you don't understand us :P, it was some of the most fun and happy times I had.

No the best metaphor is trademark. When you buy an Apple product, you don't expect some cheap Chinese rip off inside of a package with an Apple logo. Same here, except that the trademark doesn't belong to a corporation.

Quoting myself: Trademarks on food are fine. That matches onto parmesan, champagne, etc. I'm all for it. That has nothing to do with restricting the export of the pigs. Protect the name, sure. Don't let them call it jamón ibérico armericano [sic]. But let them have the pigs and see what they can do with it.

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