Proceso de conformación de CTA de corteros de caña en Mayagüez

There are two banana plantation companies operating under this adopter type, coded as ‘Plantation A’

and ‘Plantation B’. However, both plantations belong to a large corporation, in which ‘Plantation A’ is the flagship company while ‘Plantation B’ is an expansion company. Both plantations are located in

the Mindanao Island of the Philippines (Figure 18). Since the QMS used on both plantations is the

same, ‘Participant 1’ was interviewed about both plantations. The following sections describe the

farm characteristics of these plantations relevant to the adoption of PhilGAP certification programme.

Figure 18. Map of the Philippines (Google Maps, 2016), magnifying the Davao region where ‘Plantations A and B’ are located.

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5.4.1.1 Plantation A

‘Plantation A’ is owned and managed by a Filipino-owned corporation that owns many other businesses in transport, container port terminals, real estate, and resorts among others. However,

‘Plantation A’ is the flagship company that started as an abaca (Musa textilis) plantation for the fibre industry in the 1950s. Then it shifted to Cavendish bananas (Musa acuminata) in the 1970s in a

contiguous lowland area located in Davao del Norte. ‘Plantation A’ has been involved in banana

production for 45 years and currently has over 6,640 hectares planted with bananas. They produce an average of 5,000 boxes of bananas per hectare per year or the equivalent of 30 million boxes or 390

million metric tonnes of bananas annually. The growing areas of ‘Plantation A’ are divided into six

districts and each district has two to three zones. Each zone contains different farms operated by a

manager. Each farm contains a ‘parcela’ of land comprising of 55-65 hectares. The harvested bananas from each zone are brought to a common packing station and each district has two to three pack

houses. In total, ‘Plantation A’ has 16 pack houses.

‘Plantation A’ employs up to 10,000 direct employees for banana production. Figure 19 shows the management structure of ‘Plantation A’. The organisation is headed by the chief operating officer (COO) for the banana operations who reports to a board of directors of a large corporation. Reporting to him are the vice-presidents from different divisions including agriculture production, research, the information and compliance division, and the administration division. Reporting to the vice-president of the agriculture division are the six district superintendents who manage both the plantation zones and packing stations. Each zone contains farm managers who supervise parcela managers and plantation workers. Likewise, each packing zone is led by a manager who oversees the activities of the workers in the packing facilities. The research, information and compliance division is headed by the vice-president and subordinated by a superintendent. Reporting to the superintendents are the managers from the Agronomy and Soils department, Statistics and Information Management department and the QMS department. The Agronomy and Soils manager oversees the operations of the agronomy, soils, tissue culture and chemistry laboratories led by their respective heads. Likewise, the Statistics and Information Management manager supervises the operations of the statistics laboratory and information management units led by their respective heads. In addition, the QMS manager leads a team of internal auditors. Lastly, the vice-president for administration oversees the administrative functions of the company. The Finance department is concerned with the monetary position of the company and its profits and losses. The Human Resources department is responsible for recruitment, training and employee-related concerns. The Engineering department is responsible for infrastructure maintenance and improvement. The Purchasing department is responsible for the acquisition of company assets and supplies. The Logistics department is responsible for the movement of inputs and outputs within the plantation.

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Figure 19. The high-level management structure of ‘Plantation A’.

In addition, ‘Plantation A’ also employs people who manage corporate social responsibility projects.

These are projects that aim to help the communities living within the plantation areas. These include medical missions, the donation of classrooms and hospital facilities, the provision of livelihood training for the spouses of the workers, and scholarship programmes for the workers and their dependents. The company also supports a penal farm in partnership with the government, so that inmates receive wages in exchange for farm work on the plantation.

The company’s operations have been aligned with ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 and certified with

PhilGAP since 2012, then with GlobalGAP a year later. These QMS suit the company’s corporate culture of “Total Quality”as a way of life. They have competent staff as well as in-house analytical laboratories to ensure that the quality requirements of their customers are met.

As a contracted grower, ‘Plantation A’ started its operations according to the recommended practices of their first institutional buyer, coded as ‘Customer A’, which is a multinational agricultural producer

and marketer. In 2014, another multinational producer and marketer became their second institutional

buyer, coded as ‘Customer B’. Thus, they observe the recommended practices from both institutional buyers, especially in terms of pesticide usage. Bananas from ‘Plantation A’ are exported to the Japanese, Korean, Middle East, Chinese, Singaporean, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Malaysian

markets under the brands of their two respective customers. In some cases, ‘Customer B’ sells a small

portion of the produce on the local market.

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5.4.1.2 Plantation B

In 2010, the corporation that owns ‘Plantation A’ purchased a new banana company called ‘Plantation

B’. Unlike ‘Plantation A’, the land area in ‘Plantation B’ is fragmented across three lowland areas.

The latter has two sites in Compostela Valley covering more than 320 hectares and another site in

Davao Occidental with 165 hectares (Figure 18). As an expansion area of ‘Plantation A’, the management structure for the agriculture and administrative divisions of ‘Plantation B’ are similar to

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‘Plantation A’ but on a smaller scale. However, its research, information and compliance operations

are reliant on that of ‘Plantation A’. Thus, ‘Plantation B’s’ operations are also aligned with ISO 9001

and ISO 14000. Two years after ‘Plantation A’ obtained PhilGAP certification, ‘Plantation B’ obtained its certification as well. However, it has yet to gain GlobalGAP certification. Nonetheless, it has produced 334,000 boxes of Class A bananas since 2010. The bananas are sold to a multinational

company coded as ‘Customer C’ and exported to three main markets – the Middle East, Japan and Korea – using another brand.

5.4.2 Type 2: Non-adopters of the PhilGAP Certification Programme Who Have Implemented