Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

736 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 4
Table 5. Banana cropping systems in Kisekka.
Low Medium High Overall
Wealth status
Number of intercrops
Proportion of farmers (%)
0 18.2 10.0 25.0 16.9
1 24.2 25.0 58.3 30.8
2 18.2 25.0 0.0 16.9
>2
Major intercrops
39.4 40.0 16.7 35.4
Coffee 14.8 38.9 77.8 33.3
Beans 44.4 27.8 11.1 33.3
Yams 29.6 5.6 11.1 18.3
Other 11.2 27.7 0.0 15.1
Table 6. Percentage distribution of farmers ranking constraints to banana
production.
Proportion of farmers
Constraint 1st rank 2nd rank
Pests 51 25
Weeds 17 14
Soil related constraints 22 41
Poor soils 9 18
Costly inputs 11 11
Moisture stress 2 2
Labour 8 11
Limited information 2 18
Land shortage 1 2
Annual labour demand for banana was higher than for coffee and cassava but less
than for other crops (Figure 3). Banana was reported to have an advantage over other
crops in that its labour requirements were evenly distributed throughout the year,
whereas other crops had peak and low demand periods. During peak labour
requirements, much pressure was put on the already limited family labour.
Benefit/cost analysis
Table 8 summarises the results obtained from benefit/cost analysis of different crops and
management systems. Gross income from bananas ranged from 531,000 U. Shs per ha to
1,368,000 U. Shs per ha, depending on the type of management used. Applying grass
mulch without supplementing it with manure reduced net income by 23%. However,
applying grass mulch supplemented with manure improved both gross income and net
income. Return to family labour was highest where farmers applied mulch supplemented
with manure or coffee husks and lowest with mulch alone. Applying both mulch and
mulch with manure reduced the benefit/cost ratio (BCR).