Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

Asie - Pacifique / Asia - Pacific : P. Sundararaju
Banana leaf industry
Traditionally, Indians use banana leaves as biological eating plates. Leaf industry is a big
enterprise in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Karnataka for this purpose, ratoons are
allowed with 8-10 plants in a mat for harvest of newly emerging unfurled leaves. Leaves
are wrapped in pseudostem sheaths to prevent desiccation and sent to far away markers.
Poovan, Monthan, Peyan etc. are the varieties preferred for this purpose. Each leaf gives
about 6-8 eating plates depending on the size requirement. It forms a good source of
income for marginal farmers.
Marketing
There are two types of disposal at growers level, either harvesting is done by the grower
and auctioned at wholesale market or on field disposal wherein the middleman fixes a
price based on prevailing rates and he takes the production either to local market or
distant markets. At local markets, auctioning, fruits are loaded in lorries for distant
markets either naked or wrapped in banana leaves. At destination, bunches are allowed
to ripe and sold (see also the paper from Uma et al. “Organisation structure of banana
supply and marketing in India: a case study” pp. 621 in these proceedings).
Post harvest losses are high due to perishable nature, orientation of fruits, climate,
unavoidable delays in transport and naked transportation without packing in crates.
Cleoporoides and Botryodiplodia theobromae cause considerable post harvest losses.
Post harvest diseases of banana are owing to preharvest factors like, improper field
sanitation, lack of clean cultivation and disease management etc.
Export/import
Out of total production of 95 million tonnes of banana, 11.5 million tonnes are exported
to non-producing countries. Latin America, Africa and Caribbean islands account for
major export. In Asia and the Pacific, Philippines exports to Japan although good volume
of fruits is also exported by Taiwan, Malaysia and Australia. Although India is the largest
producer of banana in world, its share in global trade is negligible. In the past, export of
banana from India was tried through Banana Federation but it could not succeed.
However, banana is an important item of export in the agenda of APEDA. It can be
exported as fresh fruit or after processing.
Export of fresh fruit demands high standard of quality, regulated at production
grading and packing level. Grand Naine is the preferred variety in export although
Philippines has also achieved success in export of “Sinorita” and Amas.
Quality standard of exportable banana is determined by form and size of finger,
freeness from blemishes and uniformity in colour development. Thus, banana has to be
grown especially for export respecting high quality standard. The banana grown for
domestic market may not suit to the quality standard required for export. To achieve the
quality standard, it has to be grown with optimum nutrition and water, the number of
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