Dorothy Nakaweesi
7 October 2008
Kampala — Farmers, scientists and policy makers from around the world, are meeting in Mombasa to formulate a ten-year strategy expected to unlock the potential of banana as the next commercial crop to alleviate poverty and generate wealth.
The five-day conference, a first of its kind, comes at a time when banana is increasingly gaining importance as a cash crop and one mostly likely to lift rural households out of poverty.
In a report from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the conference organisers said: "In the face of rising global food prices, this conference is particularly opportune and therefore intends to foster research and trade experiences from other commodities".
The result of this meeting sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help in the creation of stronger global and local market links in the region, for a crop valued at $1.7 billion (Shs2.8 trillion) in East Africa alone.
"Concrete evidence indicates that the success of these rigorous efforts to improve market access for the small farmers who grow the bulk of Africa's bananas and plantains will see their earnings double or even triple," IITA report said.
Currently bananas feed more than 100 million Africans but its potential is yet to be tapped. Bananas in their diverse forms - sweet dessert fruit, starchy cooking bananas, juicing bananas and plantains - originate from Asia.
However, people have been growing the crop in Africa for more than two thousand years -very much longer than maize or cassava. Trucks laden with banana and plantain are a familiar sight on highways leading into many of Africa's major cities, providing a significant income for farmers in the hinterland and for the traders who link them to markets.
Ships laden with dessert fruit leave ports on the West African coast and the Horn of Africa, contributing to the balance of trade and providing employment on plantations and in packing sheds. Yet in many ways the market for bananas grown in Africa is still in its infancy.
In Africa, diverse products are derived from the banana crop, including beer, wine, juice, sauce, mats, handbags, envelopes, postcards, flour, and soap and breakfast cereals. Yet, as a result of low investment in agro-processing and market development, most income from bananas still comes mainly from the sale of perishable fruit for immediate consumption.
At this meeting, researchers are expected to present results from a wide range of studies that point to numerous opportunities the crop presents to African farmers.
Uganda is second largest producer of bananas in the world after Ecuador with more than 75 per cent of Ugandans involved in production of the crop.
Uganda currently produces more than 10 million metric tonnes of banana every year, accounting for about 30 per cent of the total world production. However, a considerable part is lost. It is estimated that 40 per cent of the bananas produced in Uganda perish because of no value addition.
Bananas have played a big role as an effective hedge against food crisis and price shocks in Africa. A recent report from African Agriculture Research Consortium shows that Uganda's reliance on home-grown bananas for food and income was a key reason why during the recent global farm commodity crisis, the food price index rose only 10 per cent in the country, compared to the global average of 56 per cent.
The findings resonate with President Yoweri Museveni's recent remarks on the food crisis during the Commonwealth meeting in London where he said: "We are very happy with the food crisis. Because we produce a lot of food, and our problem has been the market."
African bananas account for 11 per cent of banana consumed in the European market with dessert bananas accounting for the biggest volume of 60,000 tonnes shipped from Africa. Despite the marketing of banana being underdeveloped, Uganda is among the five major suppliers of the crop to European markets where it exports about 1,000 tonnes per year.
Uganda mainly exports apple bananas which are often processed into dried chips for export and eaten as dessert. Companies like Amfri Farms and Hortexa have been involved in the export business for more than ten years.
Export prices of dried banana chips range from $6.5 and $12 per kilogramme, depending on quality and certification of the product. While the banana chips are on high demand, farmers in Africa and other banana producing areas are yet to satisfy demand largely because of non-existent marketing and supply-chain structures.
Information from Uganda Export Promotions Board (UEPB) shows banana for cooking locally known as Matooke are also gaining in popularity in markets such as the United Kingdom is host to a number of Ugandans in the Diaspora.
Farmers in Uganda are also battling with increasing attack of banana wilt, a fungal disease wrecking havoc to the apple banana in a number of rural areas. The banana weevil is also a problem farmers have to contend with. The disease cannot be chemically controlled and methods to limit its spread are expensive. Where the disease affected a district, food production has dropped by 94 percent.
In all cases, the Africa banana sector must resolutely undertake innovations in both production and on markets in order to remain one of the main suppliers to the European market. Latin America has taken a lead role in supplying bananas globally with Ecuador and Colombia in the leading positions. Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire have dominated African banana exports to the European Union.
Although Africa is closer to Europe in terms of distance and therefore perceived to have an edge over its South American competitors, it has failed to use the position to its advantage.
A report by the Agriculture Research for Developing Countries said; "Today, one of Africa's main advantages over its competitors is its closeness to the European market. However, intermediate freight-related costs have increased considerably in recent years and have had a strong impact on the profitability of the dollar banana industries".
The Mombasa conference will therefore seek ways on how to address challenges faced in banana production and marketing. The Presidential initiative for Banana Industrial Development (PIBID) will represent Uganda at the conference.
PIBID is a pilot project of the government of Uganda with a main objective of turning banana production into a commercially viable venture that will provide the much needed income to rural households. "PIBID is modelled around a rural Technology Business Incubator and an Industrial Technology Park, models that have helped to transform economies in Europe, America and Asia," Dr Florence Muranga, the director of PIBID, recently said.
The initiative has so far ventured into the production of banana flour expected to improve shelf life of a crop known for being highly perishable. PIBID has so far carried out banana cooking contests aimed at promoting the use of banana flour. The "Tooke" flour can be used for instant meal and confectionary.
In some parts of the country the changing weather patterns have had a negative impact on banana production forcing farmers to turn to tissue-cultured planting material.
However, farmers are grappling with the shortage of tissue-cultured planting material only available at Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) being the only source of the materials in Uganda. To address the problem, Agro-Genetic Technologies Ltd (AGT) has set up a tissue-culture laboratory to cater for the increasing demand for high quality planting material.
Mr Erastus Nsubuga, a researcher at AGT said: "For the last four years, AGT embarked on a transfer of Banana tissue culture technology to small-scale farmers and hundreds of thousands of farmers countrywide have received the plantlets". Mr Nsubuga said ever since they started operation, AGT has distributed more than four million plantlets and people have been harvesting and selling bananas.
As PIBID embarks on a long torrid road to promote banana production with value addition, it has developed at least 11 recipes to be served at the Presidential dinner at the World Banana Conference for corporate people from different organisations the world over.
Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Read comments. Write your own.
