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Dole Food Company Supports Communities in the Philippines

By Judi Hasson  

The Dole Food Company is a brand name known around the world for its pineapple production, but in the Philippines it is also credited with helping communities become better places to live.

The food company has been doing business in the Philippines for more than 40 years, and its plantations cover 20,000 hectares in a region that is rife with unemployment and terrorism.

"It's a very volatile area in the Philippines," said Marty Ordman, spokesman at Dole's headquarters in California. But "even where there is political unrest, we have been able to offer people work," he said.

In addition to hiring locals to farm and work at its cannery near General Santos City in Cotabato province, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, Dole offers social programs and health services to citizens.

The company built a 1,000-seat gymnasium for the community. It built the only tertiary hospital in South Cotabato, where one of Dole's plantations is located.

When pallets used to ship produce from the Philippines return empty, they are donated to a cooperative that manufactures desks and chairs for schools. In return, the schools have planted more than 1 million trees in honor of the program.

This program - "Chairs for Trees" - was founded by the Dole Food Company.

In the local communities where Dole operates, it plays a role in addressing various social issues and concerns, such as the lack of basic social services in many communities, said Joemil S. Montebon, director of the Mindanao nonprofit group Kasilak Development Foundation Inc., which was founded by Dole.

Melquiades L. Hernandez, of Dole's human resources department in the Philippines, said Dole is a "socially responsible company" that has a direct impact on a host of community interests: education, environment, housing, water, health and medical care.

The company said it offers good pay and benefits for its 38,000 direct-hire employees and close to 6,500 contract employees. It also said it has relationships with more than 1,500 independent growers and provides them with access to low-cost financing, markets, tested technology, training and higher earnings.

Dole is also making strides in the environmental arena. It trains its workers to monitor the safe use of agricultural chemicals and to correct problems on site. Workers using crop protection chemicals undergo regular medical tests to monitor exposure to these products.

"We've had a great relationship in the Philippines with the people there, the government there," Ordman said.

Thanks to its work in Philippine communities, Dole is one of 11 companies that were finalists for the secretary of state's 2008 Award for Corporate Excellence.

Source: U.S. Department of State