Tissue Culture Banana Project
One of the major ISAAA AfriCenter’s partnership projects is the transfer of tissue-culture banana technology to Eastern Africa. For decades, banana production in the region has been on the decline due to lack of clean, high-yielding planting materials and diversifi ed markets.
The traditional practice of planting suckers was partly to blame for prevalence of banana diseases and pests in farmers’ orchards. As a result, the poor yields made bananas costly beyond the means of poor farmers who depend on it for food and income. To address the needs, ISAAA AfriCenter partnered with national agricultural research institutes and grassroots organizations to transfer the proven tc banana technology to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia, having found the technique to have comparative advantage over others.
However, the increased yields due to adoption of tissue culture technology in the region have posed additional challenges, as some farmers have incurred considerable post harvest losses due to poor marketing and not-very innovative utilization strategies. Consequently we have embarked on an ambitious training program to improve farmers’ marketing skills and value-addition through banana processing.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this project are to:
- Improve food security among resource-poor farming communities
- Reduce poverty among small-scale banana farmers in Africa.
- Facilitate access to tc plantlets by supporting establishment of distribution nurseries within farmers’ reach through micro-credit schemes.
- Reduce post-harvest losses and increase incomes from banana by identifying and linking farmers to promising markets for both fresh and processed products.
- Enhance banana utilization by promoting a range of processed products locally and internationally.
- Assess investment options for expanding banana-based enterprises in rural economies and promote uptake of the promising technologies to new potential investors.
INTERVENTION STRATEGIES
- Conducting participatory rural appraisals to identify production constraints, major cultivars preferred by farmers, marketing channels and improvement opportunities.
- Conducting on-station trials to generate information on cultivar performances and agronomic production packages under optimum conditions.
- Carrying out on-farm trials in major banana growing areas to evaluate suitability of tc cultivars to the fi elds.
- Conduction socio-economic and market studies to understand the dynamics in growing, utilization and marketing bananas.
- Linking farmers to markets, micro-
credit schemes and encouraging them to form peer groups to increase their bargaining power.
- Training of trainers, farmer groups and extension offi cers in orchard management, post-harvest handling, marketing skills and value-addition.
- Establishing community nurseries for easy access to tc banana plantlets.
- Preparation of manuals/brochures for orchard management.
- Participatory project Monitoring and Evaluation
BENEFITS TO FARMERS
Since the project’s inception in 1997, farmers and communities have received multiple benefi ts, including:
- Reduced yield losses due to diseases and pest through easy access to large quantities of quality clean, high yielding plantlets or seedlings
- Improved incomes due to higher prices for TC bananas
- Minimized losses due to better post-harvest handling skills and value-addition.
- Increased access to better markets like supermarket chains. Uniform maturity allows for harvesting of large quantities of bananas to supply large markets.
- More farmers trained on farm management skills and group dynamics
- More farmers use their incomes from bananas not only to increase their orchards but also diversify into other farming activities like livestock rearing.
- Reduced gender gaps due to improved incomes among women.
- Access to micro-credit has allowed more farmers to establish commercially viable orchards
- Formation and strengthening of Banana Growers Association has given farmers a better bargaining power and access to capacity building and project funding opportunities
- Creation of employment for local fabricators who make banana-processing equipment.
WAY FORWARD
- Upscale the model to other African countries
- Strengthen the banana value-chain
- Diversify into other benefi cial advanced technologies like transgenic crops.
PROJECT PARTNERS
| Partners |
Roles |
| KENYA |
| ISAAA AfriCenter |
Technology transfer and overall project management |
| Highridge Banana Growers and Marketing Association
(HBGMA) |
Coordinates farmers’ access to services in the tc banana
technology transfer chain |
| Kenya Industrial Development Institute (KIRDI) |
Design and fabrication of banana processing equipment |
| K-Rep Development Agency |
Provision and management of micro- credit schemes |
| KARI-Kisii, MOA Genetics Technologies International
Limited (GTIL) |
Production and distribution of quality tc banana plantlets and
provision of extension services |
| Kenya Gatsby Trust-Business Development Services (KGT-
BDS) |
Market analysis, product promotion and marketing |
| TANZANIA |
| Directorate of research and development (RBD)- Selian Agric Research Institute (SARI) |
Production and distribution of quality tc banana plantlets and
provision of extension services |
| Banana Investment Limited and Nyirefami limited |
Banana processing and value-addition |
| Biotechnology Services and Consultancy limited |
Distribution of plantlets through micro-credit |
| Tanzania Gatsby Trust (TGT) |
Provision of micro-credit and product promotion and
marketing |
| UGANDA |
| Jakana Foods |
Banana processing and value-addition |
FoodNet- International Institute for Tropical Agriculture
(IITA)
|
Market studies, product promotion and marketing |
| Agro-Genetics Technologies |
Production and distribution of quality tc banana
plantlets and provision of extension services |
| VEDCO-RUCREF |
Provision and management of
micro- credit schemes |
| Uganda Gatsby Trust (UGT) |
Design and fabrication of
banana processing equipment |
NB: Funding was mainly from The Rockefeller Foundation and the IDRC. Additional Microcredit support
from FARMAfrica; Regionalization support by RaboBank of The Netherlands
