An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

158 CHAPTER 11
in cooking, brewing of local beer, roasting,
or sweet desserts (snacks).
A common set of biophysical pressures
constrain banana productivity in the region.
In both Tanzania and Uganda, drastically
declining yields were reported from the
1970s to the early 1990s, caused by soil fertility
problems, weevils, nematodes, Fusarium
wilt, and black Sigatoka. Since then
(and not studied here), bacteria wilt has
beset banana plantations in the region.
Other economic factors pose challenges for
raising banana productivity and encouraging
the product commercialization that will
lead to increased rural income. Continuous
propagation in banana groves implies high
labor demands—in the face of rising opportunity
costs for labor—to manage soils
and mats effectively. Perennial production
means that bananas often serve a key role in
meeting food consumption or cash needs,
particularly for poor families, but commercialization
is inhibited by the bulk and
perishable nature of the product. Many bananas
are sold at the farm gate, with high
and variable market margins. Although
there is potential for product diversification
through processing, a negligible percentage
of production is now processed. The prospects
for exports are modest, given the
preferences of world consumers for dessert
bananas, and the competition.
Against this common backdrop, each
country has pursued its own strategy for
resolving the challenges. The Ugandan
National Banana Research Programme
(NBRP) has pursued a three-pronged approach
to combating biotic constraints to
banana production. In addition to assembly
and evaluation of local and foreign germplasm,
including hybrids from FHIA and
IITA, the program has undertaken breeding
for resistance by crossing and genetic transformation,
combined with tissue culture
propagation of clean planting material. Elite
highland bananas have also been propagated
and distributed to farmers. The bestyielding
highland bananas have proved sterile
and hence not amenable to conventional
breeding. As a consequence, genetic transformation
is a major option for attaining
host-plant resistance. Related research is
under way on a range of varieties that represent
the diversity among genomes and clone
sets in the region, in order to retain the enduse
attributes appreciated by consumers.
The third element of NBRP’s approach is
the development and recommendation of
banana management practices, consisting of
both natural resource (soil and water) and
sanitation techniques.
Like the national research program in
Uganda, the program in Tanzania has
brought in a large number and wide variety
of materials for evaluation under local conditions.
In the context of the KCDP project,
the governments of Tanzania and Belgium
then diffused relatively large amounts of
new planting material in Kagera Region,
including exotics and hybrids.
Farmer participation in evaluation and
testing, as well as their central role in supplying
planting material, is a salient feature
of the traditional production system and is
reflected in the strategies of both NARO
and ARDI. Tanzanian researchers have
documented the role that farmers have
played historically in locating sources of
clean planting material—often over great
distances—over the past half-century recalled
by farmers in personal interviews.
Various farmer-based systems have served
as a means of efficient dissemination of
materials, albeit on small scales in specific
locations in Uganda. Not only the material,
but also the information about management
practices appears to diffuse primarily
through farmer-based channels, although
roughly half of farmers in Uganda rely on
formal sources in addition to other farmers.
Of formal sources, government extension
figures most prominently.
Linked by language, culture, and history,
banana growers in Tanzania and
Uganda are separated by a national border
and live in different administrative and political
jurisdictions. In both the Ugandan
and Tanzanian subdomains, roughly one-