Dole believes that GAP is a key element in Dole’s quality assurance chain and that it, along with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Good Distribution Practices (GDP), Hazard Analysis and the Critical Control Points (HACCP), quality management and traceability systems, contributes to ensuring food safety.
Good Agricultural Practices are guidelines set up to ensure that Dole’s agricultural practices are in accordance with Integrated Crop Management (ICM) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to better protect the environment. GAP ensures that the desired degree of pest and disease control is attained.
Integrated Crop Management
ICM is an agricultural approach that marries profitable crop management with respect for the environment. It helps conserve a farm’s natural assets through methods that observe soil, climate and biological control. These methods include practices such as rotating crops and modifying tillage practices. ICM is not a rigidly defined form of crop production, but a dynamic system that is constantly adapted to make sensible use of the latest research, technology, advice and experience.
Integrated Pest Management
IPM has long been a way of life at Dole. Through innovative research, Dole has carefully integrated cultural, biological and, when necessary, chemical control measures into an overall management program for each pest problem. The end result has been a program with great emphasis on the prevention of major outbreaks. Dole’s pest control practices are continuously reviewed for their effectiveness, efficiency and environmental impact, and alternatives are subjected to rigorous evaluation.
Dole uses conventional crop protection products as a last resort, only when and where pests are present in sufficient numbers to cause severe damage to fruit or vegetable quality and without compromising health, safety or environmental standards. Dole uses these products with the proper care and in accordance with applicable law. In addition, Dole will not use anywhere, any product banned for reasons of unacceptable health or environmental risk by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the European Union.
Dole makes extensive use of natural techniques, including biological controls (such as beneficial predatory wasps that attack certain harmful insect pests), bioantagonists (micro-organisms that infect specific pests), and alternative sources for fertilization and soil improvement (such as non-competing cover crops). Dole has a comprehensive research program for biological control agents (naturally occurring organisms that control pests and diseases) and closely monitors worldwide scientific research in this area.
Dole has a multifaceted program to ensure that the products delivered to its customers meet regulatory requirements. This is also true with respect to permissible legal residue limits or tolerances for any crop protection product that may have been used. The program’s policy is rigorous, meaning that extensive field research is carried out to ensure that when chemicals are used in a pest control program, there are no crop protection product residues upon arrival to the market (or residues so slight that they are well below the permissible levels established and enforced by regulatory agencies).