ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the initial development and implementation of the Conservation Agriculture Network’s (CAN) first Costa Rican banana project and provides some of the key elements for creating a successful environmental certification programme, as well as some of the potential pitfalls to avoid. The CAN's first project, the Better Banana Project, is aimed at greening agroindustry's production of bananas. The chapter reviews the principles of environmental certification and explains the importance of timing, participation and flexibility in a successful environmental certification programme. The Better Banana Project differs from many other agricultural environmental certification programmes in that it allows a 'circumspect use of agrochemicals’. The marketing problem faced by the Better Banana Project should be noted by those wishing to develop environmental certification programmes. The chapter addresses the ways in which marketing and monitoring can pose challenges to effective programme operations. It concludes with a series of policy recommendations for those operating or developing environmental certification programmes.
