Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

772 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 4
les systèmes de cultures multiples et multi-étages en Inde péninsulaire et dans le Kerala.
De sérieux efforts sont encore à faire pour analyser en détail et de façon critique les différents
systèmes de production pour qu’ils soient mieux utilisés au niveau régional et mondial,
et l’attention de l’INIBAP est sollicitée sur ce point.
Abstract
Peninsular India is a centre of great diversity for banana cultivars, types and wild relatives.
Moreover, bananas are being grown over a wide range of soil and agroclimatic
conditions under different farming and cropping systems. Production systems include
cultivation under both rainfed and irrigated conditions in open and partially shaded
situations, as a sole crop, in crop rotations, multiple cropping, intercropping and
companion cropping. When bananas are grown as a pure crop, especially Nendran (AAB),
seasonal crops like vegetables, pulses, tubers, ginger and groundnut are raised as
intercrops, either singly or in combination. In wetlands and uplands, the practice of
rotating banana with rice/tapioca/vegetables/sugarcane pulses is common. It is extensively
grown as intercrop with coconut, arecanut, pepper, cocoa etc. A sort of relay of Nendran
banana with rice is followed in some areas. A tradition cultivation of “Kaizhakula”
production of attractive, golden-coloured, very high grade Nendran bunches to be
presented to temples, landlords and VIPs for the Onam festival, is an interesting
indigenous practice in Kerala.
Homestead farming evolved through ages is unique to the state of Kerala where a farm
family resides on a piece of land, raising different crops along with livestock. It can well
be considered as a mixed agroforestry production system including the human
component. Bananas constitute an integral component of homesteads. Often bananas
are grown as a shade/nurse crop during the early stages of coconut, arecanut, pepper,
rubber, coffee and cocoa plantations as they assist the establishment of the perennials.
Ratooning ability of many cultivars of bananas is yet another peculiarity which suits
certain systems. Bananas can have a prominent role in agroforestry too, as proved by
their efficient combination in the multiple role and multistoried cropping systems in
peninsular India and the homesteads of Kerala. Serious efforts are yet to be made to
critically analyse different production systems in detail which might be better utilised at
the regional and global level, and to which the attention of INIBAP is invited.
Introduction
Banana is one of the most important fruit crops of India and its cultivation in the country
is as old as the Indian civilisation. Tropical Asia including India is accepted as the centre
of origin of the crop (Shanmugavelu et al. 1992). Banana contributes 31% of the total
fruit production in India with 10.4 million tonnes from 392,000 hectares. Its availability
round the year at reasonable cost and its ready acceptance by all sections of the people
make it all the more popular. Peninsular India, especially the states of Kerala, Tamil
Nadu and Karnataka, is an area of great diversity for both banana and plantain cultivars,
types, progenitors and wild relatives. Numerous cultivars, more or less satisfying the