The East African Special Advertising Section
Date: 26.01.2014
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|)USAID
NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES­ KAWANDA
NARO
Northern Uganda embraces banana growing to address
food and income security
Implementation Status of NARO Banana Program and USAID/ABSPII in Northern Districts"
Uganda's northern region has been known for growing sorghum and millet as
the major staple crops. But now, farmers are embracing banana growing in the
region as a measure to tackle food security. Q&A with Dr. Tilahun Zeweldu, the
senior biotechnology advisor at the USAID­funded Agricultural Biotechnology
Support Project II and here are the excerpts:
What triggered you to introduce the crop in the region
dominated by other crops such as sorghum and millet?
How is the uptake so far?
Banana is a food, and cash crop, it yields all year round.and
needs little investment. Banana is a perennial crop which
does nor need planting every year, income can be fetched
both from sucker sale and fruit sale, the leaves and pseudo
stem can be used for different purposes such its animal
feed and also the fiber to manufacture handicrafts. The
perennial nature of banana makes people settle down and
do sustainable farming. Banana can be intercropped with
bean5. ground nuts, hot pepper, and leafy vegetables.That
means banana farm planning could address food, nutrition
and income needs.
North Uganda^ has suffered under multi­year insurgency
and internal displacement of hundreds of thousand
innocent poor farming communities. Recently peace
returned back to the region and communities and families
are building their lives again. The Northern region of
Uganda is not known for banana or matooke farming,
however starting banana farming could provide
sustainable food and income to a small scale farmer so
that returning IDP can build their livelihoods at faster rate.
The banana market opportunity in the South Sudan has
also opened up so that the region can exploit this
opportunity for cash generation
The Northern region still has relatively fertile soil which
could be very favorable for banana farming. USAID/ABSPII
and NARO have been promoting banana in the Northern
Uganda since 2011.
So far, the demand for banana farming has been enormous
but the project can't catch up with the demand for
planting material and does not have any commercial wing
to satisfy the demand.
Farmers who started growing bananas a year ago have
made significant amount of money just from the sale of
suckers which has been costing up to $2 per sucker. That
means farmers have already started benefiting from the
banana even before they have seen the first fruit.
My recent information from the region is that farmers are
exchanging goats with banana suckers. One goat is about
equivalent to 30 banana suckers. This is indeed extremely
interesting development. Moreover A8SPII is collaborating
with Biosciences for African Farmers (84FA), a UK based
project to deliver ICT enabled education and training of
banana farmers in different technology use and
application.
We plan to pilot this project in Amuru and Pader Districts
in Northern Uganda. After successful pilot project we
for other areas such as health and nutrition education,
what is happening In the central region will not
happen in the northern region in regards to the spread
of pests and diseases?
Pests such weevil and nematodes and diseases such as
black sigatoka, fusarium and wilt are major constraints of
banana production. Wilt caused by bacteria has been
major challenge in Uganda and even in a wider East
African Region. This disease is mortal but controllable if
farmers know how to.The good news is that the pathogen
is not air born and its transmission mechanisms are well
known and understood and therefore controllable.
The contamination occurs through farm tools. Insects
visiting male flowers, and unclean planting materials.
Therefore the logical way of controlling would be
disinfecting the farm tools whenever we use them,
removing infected plants from the field and burn them,
de­budding the male flowers right on time, and using
healthy tissue culture materials for new planting.
Moreover, banana plantations should be renewed with
new materials once in few years. The central region has
been growing same clones on the same field for several
years and pest and disease build up over the years might
have been huge.
The soil might have also run out of the necessary nutrients
over the years. So banana needs proper farm management
as any other perennial crop in terms of disease control, soil
fertility management and also water supply. Thus these
practices should be implemented in the central region and
also all other banana growing regions of Uganda.
In your own analysis, what is the state of banana
production the country visa vies the population
growth?
Recent reports show that banana production and
productivity has been declining in Uganda, This is not
encouraging news given the fact that banana is number
one food crop in Uganda.The Uganda's population growth
is one of the highest If not the highest In the world.
That means Uganda will need more and nutritious food
every year.Given Its perennial nature and production cycle,
banana is strategically the most important carbohydrate
source to the Ugandans. If banana production is
the Northern region makes a lot of sense to secure
growing national food demand.
However it is paramount that banana farming and
extension service should be modernized all over the
country. Uganda is not very famous In using water for
irrigation.The country has enormous fresh water resource
both domestic and irrigation and yet the use of irrigation is
still insignificant,
application of irrigation practices as well as moisture
management
¦ Renewing old banana farms with fresh banana
gemrplasms and modernizing agricultural practices
including intercropping with compatible plant species
Establishing model banana farms as education and
training strategy
• Improving input services delivery required for banana
farming
Creating proper banana market opportunities
Including posfharvest handling and industrial process­
ing of banana Into different products
What an the challenges you are experiencing In
regards to promoting banana production in northern
Uganda and the other areas you are proposing to
Introduce the crop to address the issues of food
security?
There might be several and complex social and cultural
problems, but in my mind the following are quite visible:
• Poor organization of farming communities
• Shortage of clean planting material
Lack of knowledge in banana farming practices (crop
management, soil fertility management, pest and
disease management, moisture management,
postharvest handling and market)
¦ Absence of proper technology transfer mechanism
such as clusters of farmer training and service delivery
centers. These are centers where farmers can easily
access knowledge and farm inputs as well as advisory
services such as seed services, soil fertility analysis and
fertilizer services, farm designing services, irrigation
services, seed services, chemical services, and many
more services.
• Lack of coord inatedanddeliberateseriousapproachln
extension service delivery
And, how are you trying to address those challenges to
ensure that you achieve your goal as far ensuring food
security in Uganda is concerned?
Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPI1) is
US AID supported project active In Uganda since 2004, The
project has been instrumental,^ biotechnology capacity
building and banana disease resistance breeding research
support. The project is supporting biotechnology basic
research, applied research, state of the art biotechnology
transfer, banana product development and delivery of
hybrid bananas to farmers in the Northern Uganda and the
rest of the country. This is a comprehensive end to end
long term development support provided to Uganda by
the US­government through US AID, This project has
contributed significantly to make Uganda one of the top
biotechnology countries in Africa.
What needs to be done to ensure that the banana
general agricultural practices, environment protection, production in Uganda is revived?
Uganda probably has to take several measures to arrest
wild life conservation, and tourism education
the declining productivity, reverse and develop the
While you are introducing the hybrid banana varieties banana industry:
in Northern Uganda, the country's crop in other areas • Introduction of new pest and disease resistant varieties
especially in the central region appears to be • Proper banana farm management practices including
vanishing due to pests and diseases. What measures
sucker management, using clean planting materials,
have you or are you putting in place to ensure that
disease and pest control, soil fertility management and
Developing biotech banana varieties through molecular
breeding approach has been rather challenging due to the
complexity of the science Itself and associated regulatory
frameworks to be put in place In order to use these
technologies. However this strategic effort is moving along
well.
While we are addressing fundamentals of banana pest and
disease problems through biotech application, which
might take some more years to bear fruit, we should also
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The East African Special Advertising Section
Date: 26.01.2014
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be able to address current Issues using conventional problem sorted out, we would never ever break the vicious
existing technologies. In the processes of addressing these
issues we have been collaborating with local leaders and
extension workers including National Agricultural
Advisory Services. Recently we have come up with
innovation that will facilitate farmers to learn farming
circle of being in humiliating and degrading state of mind.
If we don't give hope and create opportunities to the ever
growing youth population of Africa, sooner or later we will
drown in our own creation and no one in the world want
to find self in that situation. Therefore we all should
using ICT tools and we want to capitalize on that. If we practice collective responsibility for our countries and
want to empower farmers both female and male, we have people. All citizens have equal responsibility for their
to give them easy access to knowledge and information.
country and the world. Political leaders are also equally
responsible for the country and the people they lead, but
What are your future plans to ensure that Uganda they have also accountability for both national success
becomes a food secure country7
and failure.
This question has not been answered by any government
in the African continent satisfactorily. All governments try
several strategies and those strategies have very strong
weaknesses.
If you ask me how to make Ugandans food secure, there is
one simple thing I would do.
Banana is a special gift of God to Uganda. There are no
people in the world that consume as much banana as
Ugandans. The country is number one In banana
consumption in the world and number two in production.
Currency Uganda has about four million households and if
every household plans to grow 100 banana plants which
would take only 900 square meter area, and if 100 marts
produce two bunches of banana a year, that would make
200 bunches a year per household.
This would, mean a family of six people would have about
4 bunches of banana a week. If a bunch of banana weighs
about 25 kg i n average that would make 100 kgs of bana n a
a week per family.This would again mean about 14 kgs of
banana per day per family which equals about 2.4 kgs of
banana per capita per day.
This is the amount of banana that would be available as
food and also as resource to be exchanged with other
commodities Banana in fact grows in association with
beans, ground nuts, and other short cycle annual crops.
Those crops can also provide food and income.
The Nine hundred or for calculation sake, one thousand
square meter area banana garden could also be integrated
with poultry farming, apiary around border areas as
vertical space use, and passion fruit farming at the fence
areas, which can also serve as a wind break
That means if a family of six people could manage to have
an integrated and irrigated banana based intensive 1000
meter square farm, not only household food security but
even cash security would not be an Issue in Uganda.
Therefore if I had an opportunity, I would instruct every
rural farming family of Uganda to have at least 1000 square
meter intensive highly productive banana garden as food
insurance policy. If that is materialized, Ugandan
households would never ever go hungry, never! They
would rather be food basket of Africa thanks to banana the
gift of God to Uganda.The country would become the net
exporter of food to the rest of the world given the vast
agricultural land it has.
What lessons have you learned during the past two
years?
Farmers know what is good for them if we give them
choice
Farmers don't need free things but they need business
Women seem to have more interest and responsibility in
the sustenance of the planet and human race
Agriculture sector can create millions of job opportunities
for the rural and even urban youth if we know where, how
and when! I actually think we do not have many options
left except industrializing agriculture and create opportu­
nities there for millions of youth.
Any other burning issue that you think need to be
addressed as you continues carrying out research and
distribution of high yielding crop varieties?
One fundamental problem in Africa is the lack of organiza­
tion and management In all walks of life, politics, business,
society and culture. If we can't get that fundamental
anticipate to expand the model In several regions of
Uganda.The technology is very adaptable and can be used
dwindling in the central region and maybe even in the
Western and southern regions, expanding and taking it to
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