Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

26 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 1
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Dominica, Ecuador and St Lucia. In Africa, the highest production per capita is found in
Uganda (472 kg/cap.) followed by Rwanda (382 kg/cap) and Burundi (236 kg/cap), while
in the Asia-Pacific region, Papua New Guinea produces 148 kg/capita (FAO 1998).
Types of bananas
Africa Asia LAC
Figure 5. Increase in Musa yields by region, 1970-97.
Table 2. The 20 largest banana and plantain producers in 1997 (metric tonnes) (FAO,
1998).
Country Production (mT) Country Production (mT)
India 9.934.600 Rwanda 2.248.000
Uganda 9.893.000 Mexico 2.063.860
Ecuador 6.622.362 Cameroon 2.016.000
Brazil 5.779.120 Ghana 1.804.000
Colombia 4.797.300 Nigeria 1.750.000
Indonesia 4.767.520 Thailand 1.700.000
Philippines 3.500.000 Venezuela 1.626.799
China 3.141.000 Tanzania 1.538.000
Zaire 2.700.000 Burundi 1.507.000
Costa Rica 2.505.000 Peru 1.390.700
Bananas produced for export account for around 13% of total world-wide Musa
production, and this is almost exclusively Cavendish varieties. Cavendish is also
produced widely by non-exporting countries (Figure 7), accounting for 35.5% of
production in Asia and the Pacific, of which only 5% is exported (Figure 8). In Latin
America, Cavendish accounts for 56% of production, of which 32% is exported (Figure 9).
Plantains (AAB) are the most important type of Musa produced in West and Central