Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

Afrique / Africa : M. Tshiunza et al.
In each village a number of farmers growing cooking banana were randomly selected
based on the intensity of cooking banana cropping. On the whole, 217 farmers were
selected for interview. In addition, six rural markets within the cooking bananaproducing
villages were visited and 24 traders were identified and interviewed.
Data collection and analysis
Two sets of primary data were collected using structured questionnaires. The first set of
data was collected from cooking banana farmers while the second set was collected from
cooking banana traders. Data collected from cooking banana farmers include their socioeconomic
characteristics, agronomic and market factors. Socio-economic information
includes farmers’ characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, gender ownership
of cooking banana, major occupation, and educational attainment. Agronomic factors
collected are the number of cooking banana mats planted and farmers’ experience
(years) in cropping cooking banana and plantain. Market factors include the proportion
of cooking banana sold, the number of years the farmers had been selling the crop,
place(s) of sale as well as major buyers and their gender.
This information helped in the design of relevant questions for the second data set
meant for cooking banana traders. These are here defined as individuals who buy
cooking banana bunches from farmers in the rural market for resale. Six rural markets,
Assa, Gio, Gokana, Mgbede, Nonwa and Seme/Barayira, were visited twice during the
period of survey and cooking banana traders were identified and interviewed. Apart from
their socio-economic characteristics, the traders were asked questions about their
cooking banana and plantain trading experience, major places and sources of purchase
of cooking banana, number of cooking banana sellers in the market, purchase and selling
prices of small, medium and big bunches of cooking banana and plantain, and their
major buyers. Forty bunches each of cooking banana and plantain were individually
weighed and their purchase prices recorded. This information was collected at the end
of the market in order to interview only those traders who had actually bought from
farmers after the usual bargaining that characterises the determination of prices in
Nigerian markets. Farmers who had brought their cooking banana to the market were
excluded from the traders sample.
Descriptive statistics such as percentages, means, and frequencies formed the tools
for data analysis. The Student t-test was used to compare quantities sold and cooking
banana mats planted between different categories of farmers.
Results and discussion
Proportion of cooking banana sold by farmers
The most common cooking banana cultivars found in the survey area were Bluggoe,
Fougamou, and Cardaba. Farmers had given them different names such as “Banantain”,
“John Bull”, “Monkey banana” and “Cameroon plantain”. Farmers do not differentiate
489