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O presente documento foi apresentado na 2nd International Conference of the LSIRD Network que decorreu em Bray, Dublin em Dezembro de 1998, tendo integrado os respectivos Proceedings. The “Queijo de Nisa” is a traditional Portuguese half-hard cheese made from raw sheep milk, coagulated with a plant rennet (Cynara cardunculus L.) and with a ripening period longer than 45 days, which received a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) in 1995. Besides the PDO cheese, in the same geographical area other half-hard cheeses are also produced, primarily by the same firms, from raw mixed sheep and goat’s milk coagulated with an animal rennet. The name, Nisa, comes from the municipality of Nisa, which has been the most important and traditional centre of cheese economy in North of Alentejo (Graça, 1988). The geographical production area of “Queijo de Nisa” is in a less-favoured area of eight municipalities in the North of Alentejo and the regional dairy herd has 30,750 “merino” sheep, shared by 241 farmers. Agriculture plays a dual role, as provider both of food, and rural environmental and cultural services. It includes high nature-value farming systems, such as keeping sheep, goats and beef cattle, on wooded agro-pastoral land and Mediterranean scrub. In the geographical area we have identified three different types of cheese dairies, among processors of “Queijo de Nisa” and other processors. We have surveyed all the cheese dairies and we present the results of that survey. We compare these different types of cheese dairies in order to analyse the social, economic and territorial differentiation related to them. |
