Could this backfire on them, when customers start demanding more local food? Or are they trying to get out ahead of that sort of thing by showing how "good" there banana farms are, even if they happen to be 1000's of miles away from where you are eating them.

Organic is good, Local is better.

Organic local tops them all.

Nice in theory, but I'd rather know where my produce comes from before puying and punching in a code (or bringing a notepad to the market for a recon trip.) Why doesn't the website list the codes for various locations?

Note: I only did a basic scan of the site, so if that info is provided somewhere else I apologise.

Perhaps Dole could add a SMS line to see where your banana came from? And can you really have a local banana if you live in the northern US or the midwest? I thought they only grew in the tropics...

1) bananas can definately NOT grow in new england, and I like bananas, so I will keep buying the imported produce

2) the sticker on the banana clearly says "columbia" - thats where it came from, you know right then and there in the grocery store. BUT, if you are even more curious about the farm and country of origin, Dole has kindly gave you the means to do so (how many other produce companies out there doing that, huh?)

I think its great and hope other companies will follow suit. I mean just compare this to the most recent news about chaquita banana....makes dole look saintly compared to that mess.

Bananas are the one non-local food I think I utterly could just not live without (olive oil, chocolate, and tea being the others). I go for local fruits otherwise (in Pennsylvania that's apples & berries), but bananas, oh my potassium-rich muse.

I sometimes imagine that cargo boats from far off tropical places could be run on banana fuel, or some other small portion of the crop being shipped. 95% bananas, 5% nannerz for fuel, very sustainable!

Its nice to read something about bananas that doesn't centre around the "they're all going be extinct in 15 minutes" hysteria.

Though I'm curious as to the origins of the specific content the code will provide: if it is written by the farmers, will it be detailed enough?

And if it is written by the banana company whats to prevent it mislabelling them (either accidentally or "accidentally") to improve sales or reputation for ethics?

Woo hoo!

Hey, if my Hugg posts keep inspiring Treehugger articles...can I just start writing for Treehugger? :-?

i'm taking a class that focuses on sustainability and it was noted in class that the biggest obstacle to going "green" and potentially saving the planet is people's reluctance to change based solely on their comfort level... it's amazing (and disheartening/disgusting) to think of the ramifications our comfort level has on the rest of the world.

beyond the obvious issue of locality, one also mustn't forget the past (below) and ongoing politics of the banana republics...

dole food co. (used to be standard fruit co.) has a sordid past not unrelated to that of the united fruit co. which, with the help of the CIA and eisenhower, had the the guatemalan govt. overthrown.

from wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company):

"In 1954, the Guatemalan government of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was toppled by a group of Guatemalan army officers who invaded from Honduras with the covert assistance of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (see Operation PBSUCCESS). Before that, the directors of UFCO had lobbied to convince the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that Colonel Arbenz intended to align Guatemala with the Soviet bloc. Besides the disputed issue of Arbenz's allegiance to Communism, the directors of UFCO may have feared Arbenz's stated intention of purchasing uncultivated land from the company (at the value declared in tax returns) and redistributing it among Native American peasants. The American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was an avowed opponent of Communism whose law firm had represented United Fruit. His brother Allen Dulles was the director of the CIA. The brother of the Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs John Moors Cabot had once been president of United Fruit. The overthrow of Arbenz, however, failed to benefit the Company. Its stock market value declined along with its profit margin. The Eisenhower administration proceeded with antitrust action against the company, which forced it to divest in 1958. In 1972, the company sold off the last of their Guatemalan holdings after over a decade of decline."

banana anyone?

(it should be noted, that bananas are on of my favorite foods as well, but i generally try to get them from my local natural food store's dumpster - you'd be amazed (or maybe not) at what's thrown out in our society - perfectly good organic food - it may have a "blemish" or bruise on it, but certainly it's still edible and 95% of the time it's delicious)

I'd like to second Dustin's comment. Dole's had a long history of engaging in disgusting, shady political dealings and abusing human and worker rights. It's a company now desperate to green its image, especially in the face of real, green companies like Oke USA, which sells fair trade bananas.

What Treehugger COULD do is put Dole's greening effort in context here. For ex, what % of Dole's bananas are represented in this Dole Organic effort? Is it really something significant? Or is it a paltry amount that, in the big picture, means little?

I get that Treehugger writers get paid per post, but these "lemme just copy a press release from a big corp" type of posts are really uncool.

Has anyone seen Life and Debt? After learning a bit about the dubious practices on multinational corporate plantations (Dole, Chiquita, et al.), I really go out of my way now to source nicer bananas.

The problem is not food safety, either. Conventionally grown bananas are treated only marginally different than organic ones (which is why organic bananas are only pennies more expensive, as opposed to, say, organic strawberries, which are much more safe in terms of chemical exposure, but cost a bundle if you can find them at all). The problem is the treatment and pay of labourers and of the ravaging effect of these enormous plantations on local communities. I expect that an organic banana from a company with unfair practices is no more fair than a conventional banana from that company.

Whole Foods carries Earth bananas, grown by Earth University in Costa Rica, and even when I do all of my grocery shopping elsewhere, I stop at Whole Foods to get these Bananas. I was disappointed just yesterday, though, to see that WFM had some Dole bananas interspersed with the Earth ones.

Conscientious consumers should be wary of attempts such as this one to use marketing to lull us into feeling good about their products. Clearly Dole is directing this exclusively to purchasers of organic produce, who--as Michael Pollan astutely showed us--are interested in the story of their food, not necessarily the numbers. These labels signal nothing about changes in production or labour practices, only that a marketing firm developed new stickers and a new website to feed us their story and their bananas.

Show me a third-party assessment of various banana plantations and I might be convinced otherwise. Until then, my banana dollars will be withheld from the likes of Dole, and especially Dole Organics (part of the price premium is clearly to pay for those labels and the rather dubious website, and to the marketing firm behind them).

Come on now! Why can't we just eat our bananas in peace? Why do we have to be checking where it's from???And how did Anonymous inspire this article exactly? =?

Indeed, it is important to remember that companies such as Dole, Chiquita, and Del Monte use large scale farming techniques.

These techniques have many negative repercussions, two of which I discovered first hand while living in Dominica, in the Caribbean. 1) The taste and quality of these companies' fruit (whether or not organic) suffers and 2) the large companies' ability to reduce costs leaves small banana farmers (in countries like Dominica) unable to compete when it comes time to sell. As a result, the Dominican economy - which was once heavily supported through banana farming - has collapsed. Farms still exists, but the major markets in England and the U.S. do not. The cycle of collapse spins from there.

Kara:
Just wanted to share the development of our project with the codes on the fruits and the feedback from the consumers.
This is the case from a consumer from US and the answer from the Farm in Colombia.
I think you will find it interesting.

http://doleorganic.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=2

Regards,
Luis Monge

hahhahahaha the title sounf=ds so wrong
does anyone know where Bananna's are grown?

dole and other banana corporations still exploit their workers, are anti-union, and use harmful pesticides! the sources are everywhere. just look. :-)
just because we can see which people your banana exploited today doesn't make it any more fun or better.