Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

Afrique - Africa : A.O. Olorunda
markets. As banana and plantain are harvestable on a year-round basis, consumption is
mostly of freshly harvested fruits and post harvest losses are generally high in the fresh
produce market (Olorunda and Aboaba 1978, Olorunda and Aworh 1984). Technologies of
processing and for storage on the whole are still at the technical feasibility stage and are
yet to advance to commercialisation. These technologies, however, have a lot of potential
in absorbing production gluts which otherwise would increase post harvest losses.
Over the past two decades the Department of Food Technology at Ibadan, in
collaboration with other national and international research organisations, has made
considerable efforts towards developing viable technologies for handling, storage and
processing of banana and plantain with a view to improving the availability, stability and
accessibility of banana and plantain-based products in a sustainable way. Some of these
research and development efforts which we hope will further contribute to food security
in sub-Saharan Africa will be reviewed in this paper. For ease of presentation the work
will be discussed under the following headings :
• Managing green life and shelf life of banana and plantain
• Developing viable food processing and preservation technologies for banana and
plantain.
Managing green life and shelf life
Managing green life and shelf life by improving
postharvest handling
The cultivation of banana and plantain is still largely a subsistence scale activity, with
the marketing of produce still characterised by trading within a network of local villages
which serve as primary collection centres where produce destined for urban markets
originates (Oyeniran 1992). Operations in these primary collecting centres or village
markets include activities which foreshadow packing house operations like assembly of
produce, sorting, cleaning, packing, storage and transportation. These operations are
functioning effectively to some extent but the handling of produce is often poorly
organised resulting generally in poor quality fruits and heavy losses. Some of these
losses are due to premature or forced ripening as a result of mechanical damage. In
view of the high losses of produce incurred in these traditional marketing systems, it
has become increasingly evident that post harvest handling and transport systems need
to be upgraded in order to extend the green life and shelf life of the produce. Recent
studies by the author in collaboration with the Centre for Agricultural Development,
Ibadan has led to the development of a prototype model field packing station as shown
in Figure 1.
These facilities can apparently reduce physical or mechanical damages during
produce assembly, sorting and packaging and at other stages. Physical or mechanical
damage very often will induce premature ripening in banana and plantain. It could also
lead to deterioration as a result of microbial invasion, since the openings created during
mechanical damage serve as entry points for microorganisms.
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