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Organic Program

Dole’s Certified Organic Banana Program is at the forefront of organic agriculture, implementing natural growing procedures, and meeting the consumer demand for the ever-growing organic trend of quality products.

As consumer interest in organic products rises and new organic production and marketing systems keep evolving, organic agriculture continues to rapidly expand in the United States.

As defined by the Organic Trade Association, organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on using minimal off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony. Basically, organic agriculture puts the focus on improving soil fertility through the use of mineral and natural fertilizers and enhancing biological cycles for natural insect and disease control.

At the forefront of this organic trend is Dole’s Certified Organic Banana Program. In addition to using conventional agricultural production methods, Dole has been exploring alternative growing methods to provide consumers with a choice on how their bananas are grown.
“We see the organic industry as a growing market with good opportunities to learn methods for growing produce in a more earth-friendly manner,” said Frans Wielemaker, Director of the Organic Program for Dole in Latin America.

Researching topics from soil fertility, biological disease and insect control, Dole in many ways acts as a leader in the agricultural industry. One example is how the company seeks alternatives to synthetic chemicals in their production methods even for conventional bananas. Since the 1980s, Dole’s integrated pest management (IPM) natural controls have been integrated with cultural methods to reduce the use of chemical products for crop production and some of the IPM techniques have eliminated use of some chemicals altogether. Dole continues to investigate new, non-chemical methods to protect the crops and implement them as fast as possible in any of their farms.

Dole produces organically-grown bananas in its own farms and sources from independent organic growers located in Honduras, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Colombia and Peru for the European and North American Markets and recently in the Philippines for the Asian Market. 100% of Dole’s organic bananas are certified organic and follow the organic production standards as set by the law in the US, EU or Japan.

Dole is also working on an Organic Pineapple Program, a limited volume of which is now available in US, Canada and Europe. Consumers can find these under Dole’s “YOURCHOICE” label.

Dole organic bananas are distributed throughout the USA, Japan and Europe and are sold through the Dole Sales offices. Dole’s organic bananas and pineapple are backed by Dole’s dedication to quality control measures and to the safety of their employees, communities and environment.

The opportunities for improving organic growing methods are endless, and Dole continues to fine-tune and implement more natural control procedures for their conventionally grown crops in addition to their bananas and pineapples. They are determined to maintain their organic agriculture efforts as long as there is a market demand, so keep on eating those bananas, and Dole will keep on growing them - the healthy and organic way, for you and our earth.

Dominican Republic: Happy Smiles form Dominicana! Dominican Republic: Organic Banana Plantation at Hacienda Paso Robles in the northern Province of Mao
 
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