After nearly three years of partnership with WWF France, the company presents the progress of its commitments for a more sustainable agriculture.
The road towards 20% of organic banana plantations for 2025
For La Compagnie Fruitière and WWF France, it is essential to promote a more responsible consumption of bananas, which is the second most consumed fruit in France, and to do so through the promotion of organic farming.
By acquiring new land and converting some of its historic plantations, the production of organic bananas, initiated in 2014 at La Compagnie Fruitière, has progressed very strongly since 2016. It represents 7% of the plantations in 2018, well on its way to reach the objective of 20% by 2025.
The “4x without” project in collaboration with CIRAD materializes in the fields
In 2017 and in collaboration with experts from CIRAD, La Compagnie Fruitière carried out a diagnosis of the land constraints to the implementation of the “4x without” project in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cameroon. The goal is to progressively eliminate herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and nematicides wherever possible.
From this diagnosis was identified a plan of structured priorities around agroecology, for each of the producing countries. The agro-climatic conditions in Ghana have already allowed for progress to be made towards the objective of this “4x without” project, one of the remaining challenges being to maintain economically viable performance levels.
The farming practices have already been improved with positive results: the quantity of active ingredient used in phytosanitary products has been reduced by 12% since 2016 for the 3 banana production branches (PHP in Cameroon, SCB in Ivory Coast and GEL in Ghana). This is possible thanks to new technical itineraries, which optimize the number of treatments, namely thanks to the precise monitoring of infestation levels, despite a particularly high parasite pressure in some countries.
These innovative actions for a more sustainable banana should soon be apparent for the consumers, who are more and more concerned with the origin of products and methods of production.
La Compagnie Fruitière, partner of WWF France
As a reminder, this partnership approach is part of the implementation of the guidelines of the ISO 26000 standards, framework of reference for the sustainable development policy of La Compagnie Fruitière. WWF France has accompanied the company in the implementation of concrete actions meeting three major goals of its sustainable development policy:
• Continuous improvement of agricultural practices in order to reduce the use of phytosanitary products and synthetic fertilizers and to convert 20% of the plantations to organic agriculture by 2025.
• Experimentation on innovative and more sustainable production methods in Africa by developing new agroecological practices on conventional plots.
• Promoting a more responsible banana consumption by raising awareness about the reduction of food waste, promoting organic farming and fair trade.
For more information:
- on the partnership: https://www.wwf.fr/qui-sommesnous/entreprises-partenaires/compagnie-fruitiere
- on the WWF objective: https://www.wwf.fr/champsdaction/alimentation