Despite Chiquita's promotion of the ECO-OK - "Better Banana" certification, the program has come under increasing attack for what has been perceived by some environmentalists and scientists as a sell-out to corporate interests.
Chiquita quickly became a major force in the program, as the only major banana producer to participate. While the Rainforest Alliance has continued to try and present the program as open to everyone, Chiquita's participation overshadows all others, according to scientists, environmentalists and former employees of Chiquita.
In material and advertisements in the United States and Europe, Chiquita has been quick to use its Rainforest Alliance certification to link its products to environmental safety. Of the 81 farms certified on the program worldwide by January 1998, 74 - 91 percent - were directly owned Chiquita subsidiaries.
Connie Smith, who was Chiquita's Central American environmental coordinator before leaving her post in 1996, said the certification program ran into problems because banana companies were too competitive to cooperate. Once Chiquita began to dominate the program, the two other large companies, Dole and Del Monte, lost interest in the idea.
"It all started out on good intentions," said Ms. Smith, who lives with her family in San Jose, Costa Rica. "It was going to be an industry-wide voluntary program....But (the banana multinationals) are big competitors....The ECO-OK became an issue of competition- If we get the certification and they don't that will differentiate (our bananas).' That should never have happened."
The program was orginally called "ECO-O.K.," but the alliance later changed the name to "Better Banana."
Ms. Smith said the connection today between Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance "does have a tendency to make people wonder" about the program's validity. She said "the program needs to be re-evaluated."
Eric Holst, coordinator of the Rainforest Alliance's "Better Banana" program in New York, said the alliance receives no donations from Chiquita, but it does accept corporate donations from other companies that it is not certifying. It does charge a fee for certification. The money is paid directly to its Costa Rican partner, Fundacion Ambio, the group that performs the inspections on Chiquita subsidiary farms.
Mr. Holst said Fundacion Ambio conducts scheduled inspections on farms once a year in Costa Rica and Panama. Mr. Holst said the group reserves the right to conduct spot checks and conducts between one and 10 a year. No certified plantation ever has had its certification revoked for violations. Violations are usually not written up and are not made public, Mr. Holst said.
If inspectors find violations, plantation managers are notified and asked to correct the problem. Specific information about the inspections or any violations is proprietary and not available to the public, Mr. Holst said.
This fiscal year, Fundacion Ambio has a budget of $312,000, according to Mr. Holst. About 25 percent of that budget comes from Chiquita's fee payments, he said.
Mr. Holst said all of Chiquita's subsidiary farms in Costa Rica are certified under the Rainforest Alliance's program. Those certifications do not include many associate farms that sell fruit to Chiquita. In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that as contracts are renewed, it is asking associate farms to apply for certification with the alliance. About half of Chiquita's subsidiary plantations in Panama are certified. Thirteen Chiquita subsidiary farms in Colombia have also been certified.
None of Chiquita's subsidiary farms, or the farms of its associate growers, in Honduras, Guatemala or Ecuador are certified yet, because the program was first tested in Costa Rica. Chiquita has publicly committed to bringing all of its plantations into the "Better Banana" program by 1999. Rainforest Alliance officials said they are lining up local environmental groups in those countries to begin inspections.
In 1996, Chiquita paid the Washington-based environmental group Conservation International to send a team of eight environmental experts to visit its certified farms in Costa Rica and Panama.
In response to questions by the Enquirer, Conservation International issued a two-page letter to Chiquita, which was then forwarded to the Enquirer. It declared Chiquita's environmental efforts as "an innovative system that looks for environmental improvements in the effects of monocultures (single-crop farms), serves as a guide for the establishment of environmental measures, and promotes gradual changes in land use practices. This program should be continued and supported for its goals."
James Nations, vice president of Mexico and Central America Programs for Conservation International who led the Chiquita- commissioned study, told the Enquirer that he found the certification "very positive" and "a very above-board system."
After the discussion with the Enquirer, Mr. Nations called Magnes Welsh, Chiquita's director of investor relations, according to Nov. 13 tape-recorded voice mail-message provided to the Enquirer through a company source.
He told Ms. Welsh that "I gave (the reporter) a very positive story."
"The one thing that (the Enquirer) asked me that I hedged on was how much did Chiquita pay you, CI, to do this study," Mr. Nations told Ms. Welsh. "I said I'll have to check, even though I actually know. Now, I want to know from you, and also I'm going to ask people here, Pete and Karen (CI staffers), what they think about this idea of actually releasing that information. Because I don't feel that it's really any of his (the reporter's) business. So let me know what you think about that."
Mr. Nations did not return follow-up calls from the Enquirer.
Chiquita does support other environmental work outside of the "Better Banana" program. For example, the company is funding the nonprofit organization Amigos de Las Aves (Friends of the Birds), a group run by two expatriate Americans who work to raise macaws in captivity and then release them into the wild.
The group stated in an e-mail response to the Enquirer that it received about $20,000 so far from Chiquita, as well as weekly free bananas to feed their birds.
(Copyright 1998)
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