COVERSTORY
by Eric Hopper
Dr. Earth® - Healing our Planet
F
or the past 26 years, the company Dr. Earth®
has focused on its mission of providing com-
mercial and hobby growers around the globe
with the highest quality organic gardening
products available. Of all the companies that manu-
facture and supply organic horticultural products, not
one compares with the consistency and focus of Dr.
Earth®’s ecologically friendly mission. The owner and
CEO of Dr. Earth®, Milo Shammas, is admittedly a
capitalist. However, he has never, and will never, allow
his drive for success to overshadow the importance of
operating his company in an ecologically friendly man-
ner. In other words, Milo will never permit his com-
pany to compromise its root mission of protecting and
healing the earth, even if that compromise meant he
could make more money. Milo’s passion for protecting
and healing the planet not only inspired the name Dr.
Earth®, but also continues to motivate him to invent,
innovate, and solve problems within the organic horti-
cultural sector.
Though his interest in organic horticulture started
when he was a child helping his mother in the garden,
Milo’s notoriety in the horticultural industry began after
he introduced the fi rst inoculated prepackaged soils. He
has been called the “Godfather” of probiotic soils (soils
12
that are inoculated with living benefi cial microorgan-
isms) because of this achievement. Before Dr. Earth®,
no prepackaged soil contained added microorganisms.
Many imitators have followed Dr. Earth®’s innovative
approach to prepackaged soils.
Organic Integrity
There is a good reason why Dr. Earth®’s tagline
is “The Root of Organic Integrity”. Every one of Dr.
Earth®’s products is organically certifi ed and comes
from non-GMO sources. Dr. Earth® has never pur-
chased its ingredients from questionable or so-called
“organic” sources. Instead, Dr. Earth® prides itself on
only sourcing the highest quality, non-GMO, organic
products available. In addition to non-GMO and OMRI
verifi ed organic products, Dr. Earth® has earned the
prestigious OIM certifi cation from the California De-
partment of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). The OIM
(organic input material) certifi cation is diffi cult to ob-
tain because it evaluates a product’s entire process,
from the beginning to the end, to see if it meets organic
food production standards throughout. The fact that Dr.
Earth® offers products that are non-GMO, OMRI, and
CDFA’s OIM certifi ed illustrates beautifully the com-
pany’s integrity. Dr. Earth® is the only manufacturer to
www.GardenandGreenhouse.net
November 2018