MAJOR CHANGES could be ahead for the banana industry in Jamaica. The European Commission in Jamaica is providing J$632 million (eight million euros) to assist with the diversification of the local industry. The banana is the world's most popular unprocessed fruit consumed in the largest quantities. But there are several other products which can be derived from it.
Jamaica led the world in the commercial cultivation of banana for the international export market after captain Lorenzo Baker took samples of the fruit from Port Antonio to the United States in 1876. Up to the early 1930s Jamaica was the leading exporter of the fruit.
Export volumes have fallen significantly for many reasons and the industry, on the rebound, now faces the further difficulty of the removal of preferential access to the EU/UK market. But while there is great opportunity for the diversification of the banana industry, according to Dr. Audia Barnett, executive director of the Scientific Research Council speaking at one of our Editors' Forums, a lack of supply is hampering the process. A good case in point is the shortage of fruit for the production of banana chips.
The EU funding support is partly geared towards the expanded production of planting material by tissue culture, a process which allows the rapid production of disease-free plantlets from the tissue of healthy parent stock. The SRC is already into tissue culture but cannot supply the demand.
Interestingly, plantains are also to receive special attention. Plantains are a staple diet in several countries like the neighbouring Dominican Republic, Haiti and Columbia, and several countries of West Africa. But for some strange reason, this cousin of the banana has never really become an important domestic or export crop in Jamaica although plantains grow under the same conditions as bananas and have higher market value.
Small farmers are to be specifically targeted in the banana diversification programme. The SRC is already actively marketing new technologies to small farmers as in a recent meeting for farmers in the South St. Elizabeth and South Manchester area which exposed farmers to the production of organic fertiliser from farm waste and to the small-scale processing of farm produce into value-added products.
As we have pointed out before, whatever else may be done, agriculture has to be a critical part of rural development. The marriage of new technologies with traditional agriculture for both greater productivity and the creation of value-added products is part of the solution.
As the European Union has been constrained by WTO rules to relinquish preferential access to agri-products from ACP countries some help has been forthcoming for re-tooling and diversification. We must move aggressively to help ourselves.
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