Last night on Fox Business News Christian Eiroa touched on the partnership with Bayer CropScience. If you missed it you can view the video here.  With the official press release a few days away I was able to find more about the deal thanks to my relationship with Camacho cigars.

It turns out that Camacho Cigars has signed a deal with the Bayer Food Chain Management program which operated under Bayer CropScience.  In doing so Camacho is the only tobacco company in history to comply with strict international standards for Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Agricultural Practices.

What this translate to is the fact that Camacho is now responsible for management of natural resources, bio-friendly pesticides, industrial safety and biosecurity. The Food Chain Partnership is the first of many steps in Camacho’s plan for a higher level of social responsibility while continuing to produce cigars in the high quality that they have come to be known for.

In a June 29, 2010 meeting with Bayer executives at Rancho Jamastran in Danli, Honduras Camacho President and CEO Christian Eiroa said, “It’s an amazing feeling being the world’s first tobacco company to have partnered with Bayer CropScience. After five years of adopting Bayer’s standards for good agricultural and manufacturing practices, the official signing of this collaborative makes all of us very proud. It’s incredible to see the practices that have been implemented so far and the effects it’s had on the culture and day-to-day lives of the people that work for us in Honduras”

As the newest member under the Bayer Food Chain Management program, Camacho Cigars joins the likes of companies such as Heinz, Nestle, and KRAFT; all of which, comply with the same standards.

With growing interest by the FDA acigarsmoker.com believes this is a good thing, but what are your thoughts?

EDIT: Christian Eiroa was kind enough to respond to my being curious if this was a FDA related issue and he had this to say, “Although our new practices as per Bayer will certainly help us in the future should there be new FDA requirements, it was not our motivation for going through with the partnership. The FDA issue was Ted Kennedy’s baby but it was not going anywhere during the Bush administration. It only picked up steam once Obama’s chances were clearer. Cigars are not yet being regulated but they can easily be penciled in. This was purely coincidental as we started the Bayer process some 4-5 years ago”