A new partner joins Smartcherry; it is Drimys, a company created by Isabel Quiroz and Pía Aranguren, which will be part of our supplier portal with its services related to sustainability.
“As a company, we offer sustainability advisory and auditing services. Our focus is to help farmers make this transformation towards more sustainable agriculture and give them tools so they can move forward in this process that involves several aspects: environmental, social and economic.” explained Pía Aranguren, Director of Drimys.
Drimys has a strategic alliance with a major North American company that is a benchmark in sustainability in the northern hemisphere.
“We have alliances with other companies, but the most important one is SCS, which is a multinational company whose headquarters are in the United States. It is a leading company in third-party certification on environmental issues. It was founded in 1984 and has gradually set the standard in relation to certifications. We made this alliance to promote the “Sustainably Grown” certification in Chile. Aranguren explained.
SCS Sustainably Grow certification is related to agricultural operations taking a holistic approach to sustainability and meeting high standards of environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic stability.
“It is on this certification that we are now focusing and promoting; we also have another certification with them in this alliance, which is “pesticide free”, added the Director of Drimys.
But what is the relevance of being certified in this area? For many producers, it is extremely important to have this type of certification in order to meet food safety and security standards in order to access new markets,
“The fruit that can be identified with this type of certificate in the United States has a great advantage in being able to enter supermarkets or markets that are becoming more demanding in terms of sustainability, that is in relation to the markets; in addition, being sustainable is much more efficient and now that all phytosanitary products are expensive, the reduction in costs in relation to efficiency is very relevant. It is possible to reduce the application of fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, because a better environment is generated in the soil, a more lively soil, you need much less nutrients or by incorporating types of products that are biostimulants, biofertilizers, this soil needs much less fertilizer load to be more nutritious, so the reduction in phytosanitary products and fertilizers is notable when you are efficient and that is only achieved by doing more sustainable management”, they explained from Drimys.
These management methods include, for example, integrated pest management, having other types of tools such as monitoring or traps, that is, all the cultural management methods used to prevent pests equalize, to a certain extent, the cost.
“Another benefit of being certified in sustainability is that when you improve the vigor of the plants, whatever the crop, you have a plant that can be more resistant to all types of stress that we are experiencing and in a situation like the current one, of drought, water shortage, if the plant is better nourished, better strengthened, the caliber and production are not as diminished in a sustainable field than in one that is not; (the plants) are more resistant to this change that we are seeing now with the climate crisis,” added Pia Aranguren.
Incidentally, the above is accompanied by social responsibility in terms of caring for the environment, not contaminating the groundwater with products used in agriculture and reversing the environmental damage caused to date. In addition, this certification considers policies of responsibility towards workers.
Initially, Anacert Ltda., a company where Pía Aranguren is a founding partner, established an alliance with SCS years ago regarding the “pesticide residue-free” certification, which they carried out on wines, considering that it already existed for fruits and vegetables.
“Isabel (Quiroz), who had already created Drimys in 2019, knew that we worked with SCS and, always very interested in the topic of sustainability, proposed that we work together on the Sustainably Grown certification of SCS Global Services. Thus, after some restructuring in the Drimys company, in 2022 we began to work together. And currently Drimys is a representative of the Sustainably Grown certification in Chile and we have a group of professionals capable of advising forestry and agricultural companies on sustainability issues.", said Pia Aranguren.
This is how Drimys was established, a company that today joins Smartcherry; all of its
services are soon available on their minisite on the platform.
