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All About Bananas

And Why Bananas Matter...

Home » All About Bananas

Origins & Early TradeThe First Fruit on Earth?

Some horticulturists believe that bananas were the first fruit on earth. Their origin is placed in Southeast Asia, in the jungles of Malaysis. Indonesia or the Philippines. where many varieties of wild bananas still grow today. Africans are credited to have given the present name, since the word banana would be derived from the Arab for ‘finger’.

Bananas started to be traded internationally by the end of the fourteenth century. The development of railroads and technological advances in refrigerated maritime transport subsequently enable bananas to become the most traded fruit in the world.

Banana Link Ghana October 2016

Where Bananas Are GrownGlobal Production

Bananas are grown in more than 150 countries, and 105 million tonnes of fruit are produced each year. Bananas which are grown for local consumption are generally grown in traditional, extensive systems.

The Dessert banana, like the Cavendish variety, are of huge economic importance to many countries in the Global South, and they account for 43 million tonnes. and the Plantain account for 45 million tonnes. Locally consumed bananas are a staple food in many tropical countries and play a major role in terms of food security.

Banana Link Ghana October 2016

How Bananas Are Grown

People often assume that the banana fruit grows on trees, however, the banana is a high herb which can grow up to 15 metres. There are over 1000 different varieties of bananas growing around the world, subdivided into 50 groups. Some are sweet, like the Cavendish variety, which is the most common and most widely exported.

It is named after Musa Cavendishii and was first grown at Chatsworth House in the UK in 1830. This variety of banana is currently under threat from a disease called Sigatoka, which has reduced banana yields by 40% every year.

Banana Facts: A Visual Guide
How Bananas are grown

Why Bananas Matter

Bananas are one of the most consumed and cheapest fruits worldwide: they are the most traded fruit and the fifth most traded agricultural product. The global export value of the banana trade was estimated to be US $8 billion in 2016, with a retail value between $20 and 25 billion.

Why Bananas Matter

Export Revenues

Bananas constitute a significant portion of the export revenues for many Latin American and Caribbean countries. For example, banana exports account for a quarter of Ecuador’s total non-petroleum exports, and Ecuador accounts for around 30% of world banana market supply.

 

Export Facts & Figures

 

Employment & Income

According to the FAO and the Ecuador government, the banana industry generates about 2 million direct and indirect jobs in the country. At the height of the Windward Islands industry, it was estimated that up to sixty cents in every dollar circulating in the fragile island economy of Dominica were generated by banana production.

They are an essential source of income and employment for many households, as well as being a source of nutrition and food security for more than 400 million people in producer countries. However, only 15 to 20% of the world’s banana production is traded internationally. The largest producer India exports almost nothing, whilst Brazil exports very little, keeping bananas for the domestic market.

The Bigger Picture

Bananas are also emblematic of the growing power of supermarkets along global supply chains and of the wide range of injustices present in international trade today, including unacceptable working and living conditions for many who grow and harvest the bananas, the suppression of independent trade unions and a unfair sharing of profits along the chain.

There are also failures to respect decent health and safety standards, and the evidence of the devastation caused to human health and the natural environment by toxic chemicals and intensive monoculture plantation production is increasingly evident. Some scientists believe that the latest disease threat to the industry from Fusarium TR4 is caused by a failure to manage soil properly.

 

Banana Value Breakdown

 

How Bananas Are Grown

Banana plants are often mistaken for trees or palms – they are actually herbs. The banana is a perennial plant that replaces itself. Bananas do not grow from a seed but from a bulb or rhizome, and it takes 9 to 12 months from sowing a banana bulb to harvesting the fruit. The banana flower appears in the sixth or seventh month. Unlike other fruit like apples which have a growing season, bananas are available all year round.

Banana plants thrive in tropical regions where the average temperature is 80° F (27° C) and the yearly rainfall is between 78 and 98 inches. Most bananas exported are grown within 30 degrees either side of the equator. The plants need rich, dark and fertile soils with steady moisture in the air and ground and good drainage.

Banana plantations are predominantly found in Latin America. They require huge investment in infrastructure and technology for transport, irrigation, drainage and packing facilities. On the other hand, in the Eastern Caribbean, farmers tend to use smallholder production. This system is less capital intensive and more labour intensive, and is present because the physical features of the area mean it is not possible to use the plantation system.

Growing bananas is, in general, labour intensive. It involves clearing jungle growth, propping of the plants to counter bending from the weight of the growing fruit, and irrigation in some regions. As well as an intensive use of pesticides, the conventional production process involves covering banana bunches with polyethylene bags to protect them from wind, insect and bird attacks, and to maintain optimum temperatures.

Harvesting & Ripening

After nine months, the bananas are harvested while still green. At the packhouse they are inspected and sorted for export. Buyers of fruit in the UK want unbruised bananas and so very high standards are set. If the bananas do not meet these standards they are usually sold locally at a much lower price.

The fruit is then transported to ports to be packed in refrigerated ships called reefers (bananas take between six and twelve days to get to the UK/Europe). In order to increase shelf life, they are transported at a temperature of 13.3°C, and require careful handling in order to prevent damage. Humidity, ventilation and temperature conditions are also carefully monitored in order to maintain quality.

When the bananas arrive at their destination port they are first sent to ripening rooms (a process involving ethylene gas) and then sent to the shops.

 

Where Are Bananas Grown?

Bananas and other tropical fruit like pineapples are grown in the tropical regions of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Most tropical fruit available in British supermarkets is exported from Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa.

 


 

Latin America …

dominates the global banana export economy. The fruit represents an important source of income for these countries. Latin American countries export to Europe, North America, Russia and, most recently, China. The majority of Europe’s bananas and pineapples come from countries in Latin America, like Ecuador which is the world’s largest banana exporter, Costa Rica which is the world’s largest pineapple exporter, and Colombia. In recent years, Guatemala has expanded rapidly to overtake Colombia in export volumes. It is established as far and away the largest source of bananas for North America, with nearly 40% of US imports.

Large scale production

Typically, Central American bananas are grown on large-scale monoculture plantations covering several hundred hetares each. This form of production uses high levels of chemical inputs to increase crop yield. Labour conditions can be very poor, with workers required to work long hours for wages that are insufficient to meet basic needs. Rights of free association and collective bargaining are often denied and ‘union-busting’ is common in the region. The large plantations are also frequently responsible for damaging environmental impacts.

Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are the only countries among the major Latin American exporters that still have small banana farmers exporting alongside the large-scale plantations. Across South America, and especially in Peru, some 10,000 small farmers sell to the world market, often thanks to organic and Fairtrade certification. In Ecuador, the smallholders often fulfil a kind of buffer function for the big banana exporters: they buy from small producers when the demand on the international market is high, but if there is less demand, the small producers are often forced to sell their produce at a loss.

Caribbean …

bananas are often produced by small family owned farms and medium-scale plantations using more sustainable methods of production than in the large monoculture plantations in Latin America. The largest Caribbean exporting country, the Dominican Republic, has a mix of small farmers, medium-scale and even a handful of large-scale plantations, although around two thirds are produced organically.

The banana trade has been crucial to the economies of the Caribbean region. Banana plantations were established over 60 years ago by the British. However, over the past twenty five years, the Windward Islands’ share of the UK banana market has fallen from over half to just 1%, and the number of farmers has dropped from 27,000 to just a few hundred exporting from St Lucia. The competition with large-scale plantations producing ‘cheap’ bananas in Latin America, coupled with a series of violent hurricanes, has had serious social and economic consequences for the Windward Islands.

Although most Windwards bananas are produced under Fairtrade conditions, the volumes are now too low to have the same positive effect on rural communities that they had for the first decade of the 21st century.

In Jamaica, a series of natural disasters put paid to the export industry and farmers now produce for a local processing industry.

The Dominican Republic industry has more than doubled in size over the last decade and now employs over 30,000 people, the majority of whom are migrants from neighbouring Haiti.

Africa …

Almost all African countries produce a significant amount of bananas and plantains, but only a few actually export fresh dessert bananas. West and Central African countries – Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon – produce nearly all of Africa’s banana exports. Production in this region has grown rapidly over the past 20 years. The vast majority of these bananas are sold in Europe, mainly in France and the UK.

In 2005, the French Compagnie Fruitière invested in a large new plantation in Ghana, alongside an independent Fairtrade plantation that was already in operation. They have recently been joined by a third (Kuwaiti) company. Virtually all banana workers in Ghana belong to a trade union and collective bargaining agreements are in place in both companies.

In Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), large and medium-scale plantations are in the hands of either the French multinational Compagnie Fruitière or other French Caribbean and Belgian companies.

In both these countries, the trade unions have relatively weak and divided, but have established coordinating platforms in the biggest companies. The unions do not however yet bargain directly with the banana companies, as wages are determined at the level of the whole agricultural sector. As a result, the gap between what many workers earn and a living wage is substantial.

In Cameroon, three large-scale plantations are owned by the State (currently not exporting because of the crisis in the Anglophone Southwest region), Compagnie Frutière and a smaller national company.

Banana Producers

Until a few years ago, it was still possible to state that banana production and trade was very much dominated by four big multinational banana companies: Chiquita, Del Monte, Dole and Fyffes.

The combined market share of the top four companies was at its highest in the 1980s, when they controlled at least 70% of world trade. They sell their own production and market the production of others under contract, using their well-known brands.

Amongst other factors, the opening up of the EU market has led to them losing substantial market share. By 2019, these four biggest companies control a little over 40%, although in North America they remain very dominant.

As a consequence, other multinational companies like Compagnie Fruitière (French) or Agroamérica (Guatemalan) and a large handful of big national companies like Grupo Wong (Ecuador), Grupo HAME (Guatemala) or Grupo Acon (Costa Rica) now account for up to one third of all exports.

 

Chiquita

chiquita brands international

Formerly known as the United Fruit Company, Chiquita Brands International was until the 1990s the biggest banana company in the world, controlling about one third of world trade. Despite coming close to bankruptcy in 2000, the company stills holds second place in world sales figures, second only to Dole.

In Latin America, Chiquita operates banana plantations or buys year-round in Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico and Peru. It has had various forays into African production, but currently has no interests there.

In 2015, after an offer by Fyffes was rejected by shraeholders, the company was bought by two Brazilian companies, Cutrale (the world’s biggest orange and orange juice producer) and Grupo Safra (a powerful private banking group). It is no longer a publicly traded company.

The company is now headquartered in Europe for the first time in its history (Switzerland).

The company was one of the founders of the World Banana Forum.


Del Monte

del monte produce

Fresh Del Monte Produce Is one of the world’s leading vertically integrated producers, marketers and distributors of fresh fruit and vegetables. The company is less dependent on fresh bananas than its competitors. It is the world’s biggest pineapple producer and trader.

The company operates banana farms in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Brazil and the Philippines, and purchases or markets bananas from independent growers in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Cameroon and the Philippines.

The acquisition of Costa Rican group Caribana in 2008 substantially increased their banana and pineapple production in Latin America.

The company is owned by IAT, based in the United Arab Emirates. The headquarters is in Florida USA, and its stocks are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.


Dole

Dole Food was the largest producer of fresh and processed fruit and vegetables in the world, with over 300 products, trading in 90 countries. In total sales value, though, it has fallen behind Del Monte, after it sold its Asia division in 2012 to Japanese group Itochu.

Dole grows bananas – or sources from independent growers – in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and Dominican Republic. It also owns pineapple plantations in Costa Rica and Honduras and sources from independent producers in Costa Rica.

In 2018, Irish company Total Produce, acquired a controlling stake in Dole Food.

Dole participates actively in the World Banana Forum.


Fyffes

fyffes

Is an Irish-based company that owns the oldest banana brand in the world. It is the fourth largest global distributor of bananas and the largest in Europe/UK. The company is involved in the production, procurement, shipping, ripening, distribution and marketing of tropical fruits, mainly bananas, pineapples and melons.

Fyffes has recently bought two plantations in Costa Rica and buys from other national producers there. In addition, it markets bananas from Ecuador, Peru, Colombia (with its partner Uniban), Honduras, Belize, Dominican Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Windward Islands and the Canaries.

In 2018, the company was bought by the Japanese corporation Sumitomo, although its headquarters remains in Dublin.

Fyffes participates in the World Banana Forum.


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