In Pune,it will pay to go bananas

“Philippines is primarily into rice and banana plantation,but the latter is better paying. This resulted in many farmers shifting to banana plantation,which led to a shortage of rice there. Their government has now made it compulsory for farmers to grow rice along with banana on their farms,” said Santosh Sahane,a banana grower,a member of the association and an exporter.

“We can easily be market leaders in exports,at least to the Gulf countries. A major advantage is that it takes less than a week for our shipments to reach these countries. But from Philippines,it takes 22 days via sea,” Sahane said.

Last year,Sahane exported around seven containers of 15 tonnes each. This time,he thinks he can take the count to 25.

The Shivneri Agriculture Graduates Association is urging farmers to plant bananas in January instead of June. “Plantation in June is best for the domestic market as the harvest will come just in time for Shravan,Ganesh,Dussehra festivals and Ramzan. But plantation in January is better for exports as the quality is better and the demand is also high in the first quarter,” he said.

The association is also getting farmers to harvest the crop at 65 per cent maturity,instead of the current trend of harvesting at 80 per cent maturity,which would mean an increase in weight.

Sahane recently wrote to the National Horticulture Mission,requesting it to introduce subsidies for ‘bagging’ and ‘sticking’ purposes to help the plant grow better. “This will improve the quality of the fruit tremendously,” he said.

Exporters said while India has the largest area under banana and is its largest producer as well,it has failed to make waves in the export market. But this has been changing over the last year.

Last week,Nashik-based Dr Satish Bonde,additional director of the National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation brought a few banana exporters in touch with Pune growers.

“Since last year,the demand for banana exports from India has increased as some traditional banana exporting countries are unable to meet the demand. Exporters are saying that they are getting good orders from India. However,for that to happen,growers will need to organise themselves,” Bonde said.