GROUND TRUTH

Certification, like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, has been around for some time. But actual on-the-ground independent and transparent verification of agriculture practice on private plantations is only ten years old and was pioneered by the Rainforest Alliance, first on timber management, next on bananas, and now on a range of products and services, including coffee, ferns, cacao, oranges and even tourist boats in the Galapagos.

Historically, certification of products against agreed-on standards dominated the field. In the 1990s the manufacturing industry forged the first international set of quality standards for a management system measured against criteria hammered out among national standards bodies around the world under the auspices of the Organization of International Standards (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland. This ISO 9000 cluster of standards took hold because of the leverage enjoyed by big customers like IBM over suppliers who might be scattered around the world. There quickly followed ISO 14000, a set of standards governing environmental management systems. This standard prevailed over competing European standards because it was driven by large U.S.-based multinationals that feared lawsuits that might be brought by environmental groups in the very litigious American culture.

ISO standards were developed outside any formal government oversight. They are truly industry-to-industry standards. But the auditing companies that dominate the ISO certification process are private companies and their audit results are not made public. Essentially, interested people outside the companies have to take the word of the auditors. And,unlike the Rainforest Alliance certifications, performance on the ground is not measured or evaluated.

Other agriculture certifications that have become important are organic (which attest that farmers follow rigid procedures to limit (but not altogether ban) chemicals, and Fair Trade, which seeks to reward farmers in developing countries by passing on a portion of the premium customers pay in supermarkets.

Once Chiquita had confidence that the Alliance's certification program was effective in silencing most critics of their brand, the company decided to work with another non-governmental organization, Social Accountability International (SAI) to attest that its treatment of workers met the international standards promulgated by the International Labour Organization and other principles. This was an important decision since Chiquita is the largest single employer of farm workers in Latin America. It led to a groundbreaking labor pact with an international labor umbrella group (IUF) and with the dominant Latin American banana workers union. Labor advocates around the world celebrated and Chiquita gained since labor peace means happy and productive workers.

Now, ISO is developing its own social standard and the Alliance is leading the main organic, Fair-Trade and Social certification groups in a harmonization effort by means of which each of the labeling entities will perform agreed upon social audits together with their own unique environmental, economic and philosophical approaches.

But with almost 220,000 acres of a number of crops certified and with Chiquita having at this point certified all of its owned farms, the "ground truth" on Rainforest Alliance's pioneering work with Chiquita is that it remains the gold standard.

  

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