The Status of Banana Production in Tanzania; a Review of Threats and Opportunities

Shija Shilunga Lucas

doi:10.47191/ijcsrr/v4-i10-10

Abstract

The word “banana” refers to a crop that cuddles a number of species commonly known as Musa spp. In Tanzania, the crop is the fourth most important crop for food and income generation for more than 30 percent of the total population. In East Africa, Tanzania is the second banana producer after Uganda. The country has the highest world’s consumption rate between 280-500 kg per person. Despite the crop’s importance its production has declined from 18 t/ha in the 1960s to 5-7 t/ha/year in 2016. This review examined the status of banana production by identifying threats and opportunities with the aim of providing readily available resource for Researchers and Agriculture Extension Officers for better banana production. Through online resources, the review identified the challenges impeding banana production and ascertaining prevailing opportunities. Banana production in Tanzania is faced with many challenges including major pests (weevil and nematode) and diseases (fusarium wilt disease, black sigatoka, and banana xanthomonas wilt disease), poor soil fertility, moisture stress, poor management practices, lack of improved banana varieties and many social economic factors. The review identified that, since 1990s there are few introduced improved banana varieties and that most of these varieties are faced with low consumer’s acceptability. Again the country is faced with shortage of banana breeding centers that could produce desirable banana hybrid cultivars. This review also identified the lack of banana information resources and research platforms that involves all banana stakeholders, making targeting of varietal attributes to consumer preferences very difficult. Therefore, in order to improve production there must be an inter-link among different research disciplines, involving governmental and non-governmental organizations, coming together and seek solutions to current and future problems for sustainable production of banana.

Highlights

1.1 General Background The word “banana” refers to a crop that cuddles a number of species commonly known as Musa spp. of the Musaceae family (Umuhoza, 2014)
The crop is reflected as poor man's apple and it is the inexpensive among all other fruits in many SSA countries including Tanzania (HeslopHarrison and Schwarzacher, 2007)
It is believed that in Africa banana cultivation began around three thousand years ago (De-Langhe, 1995). Their introduction in subSaharan Africa was initiated by Arab traders after the birth of Jesus Christ (Price, 1995)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

1.1 General Background The word “banana” refers to a crop that cuddles a number of species commonly known as Musa spp. of the Musaceae family (Umuhoza, 2014). The origin of cultivated banana is South eastern Asia and Pacific regions (Masanza, 2003; Castillo and Fuller, 2010, 2012) To date, they are the world’s leading fruit crop and an important export commodity (Aurore et al, 2009, Kilimo Trust, 2012; Ploetz and Evans, 2015). It is believed that in Africa banana cultivation began around three thousand years ago (De-Langhe, 1995). Their introduction in subSaharan Africa was initiated by Arab traders after the birth of Jesus Christ (Price, 1995). Statistics shows that Tanzania produces about 4 MMT annually with consumption rate between 280-500 kg/person/year (Kilimo trust, 2012; Phumelele, 2016). The overall banana production in the country is reported to be very low, not exceeding 10% of the crop’s potential of over 60-70 tone/ ha/ year (Van Asten et al, 2005; NBS 2012)

Banana production areas

2.14 Social protection and support policies to smallholder farmers

2.17 Impact of covid-19 on banana industry

Findings

CONCLUSION