Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

154 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 1
Production systems
Gender issues
Both men and women are involved in plantain production throughout the country. Most
farmers are semi-literate with only primary level education.
Land tenure and farm size
Production is on land which is either family-owned, rented or share-cropped. Farm size
is variable, ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 hectares for smallholders. Large-scale farms are
currently being exploited.
Cropping systems
The main cropping systems are intercropping, which is the dominant practice, relay
cropping and monocropping. Intercrops may be seasonal food crops or tree crops. The
seasonal crops are usually harvested before the plantain leaves develop a closed the
canopy. Whenever tree crops are planted together with plantain, the tree crops are
considered as the principal crops. The tree crops are cocoa, coffee, citrus and oil palm.
Several intercropping patterns occur. These patterns are:
Plantain/maize
In plantain/maize association, maize precedes plantain.
Plantain/root crop
Except cocoyam, all other root crops such as cassava and yam are planted after plantain.
Cocoyam as volunteer crop
Cocoyam as volunteer crop sprouts rapidly after burning fields of secondary forest at the
beginning of the rainy season, before plantain is planted.
Plantain/tree crops
Tree crops such as citrus and oil palm are planted before plantain except in cocoa farms
where plantain is planted first to provide shade for the young cocoa seedlings.
Types of plantain and their uses
There are three types of plantain cultivated in Ghana, namely False Horn, True Horn and
French Plantain. The Horn Plantains mature in 15-18 months and have big fingers and
few hands (average of 6) while the French Plantain matures in 18-24 months and has
small fingers and many hands (average of 16). Presently, fourteen and fifteen local
cultivars of French Plantain and Horn Plantains respectively, are available in the country
(Hemeng et al. 1995).
Many dishes are prepared from the green to over-ripe stages of plantain. The major
ones are “fufu” (pounded boiled plantain and cassava), “ampesi” (boiled plantain). The
green fruits of horn plantains are usually used for “fufu” and French Plantain for
“ampesi”.