Sustainable tropical fruit grower-distributor One Banana has revealed that it has implemented different actions for the efficient use and management of water in its plantations, as a commitment to guarantee sustainability as a key pillar of development.
According to One Banana, a leader in socially responsible and environmentally sustainable farming with operations across the US, Guatemala, Europe, Peru and Ecuador, it is joining World Water Day established by the United Nations in 1993, with the aim of achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 6 - ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water.
Actions that the company has implemented include investing in reservoirs to capture water during the winter for use in irrigation when climate conditions require it. In total, One Banana has 18 reservoirs with water storage capacity of 1.463m cubic metres.
Currently, the irrigation technologies used have led to a 50 per cent reduction in the use of water in the plantations.
One Banana also participates actively in seven technical river basin working groups in the Southern and Southwestern Coast of Guatemala, has built local capacity in the communities where it operates to respond to the climatic phenomena that affect the world, and has trained more than 80 community leaders and workers for 88 hours to implement Local Response Coordination Systems for the management and prevention of natural disasters in partnership with the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction.
Finally, two certification courses on community adaptation to climate change were carried out in which more than 60 community leaders and workers were trained during 112 hours on topics of integrated basin management, adaptation to climate change, risk management and natural disasters.
