Horticulturists demand MSP for banana

Ensuring minimum support price (MSP) to banana can help overcome obstacles stemming from high planting cost of the fruit, said experts.

"The main hurdle in promotion of banana cultivation in India relates to unremunerative market price of the produce," said K L Chadha, president of horticulture society of India.

Though India is the largest banana producer accounting for 13 million tonne of the 71 million tonne annual global production, Chadha said banana cultivation was not lucrative enough in terms of fetching market price.

Major banana producing states are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

High planting cost at around Rs 72,000 per hectare should be reduced so that small and medium farmers can take up banana cultivation extensively, he said.

Chadha, who is celebrated as the father of Indian horticulture by his peers, has favoured adoption of tissue culture varieties and micro irrigation in cultivation.

Mathew Vadakkemuriyil, chairman of the Kottayam based NGO sustainable development agency, said the MSP for banana farming should be announced at the earliest for ensuring assured returns.

He also favoured adoption of organic farming techniques. Banana is the fourth highest globally traded commodity after rice, wheat and milk with total annual volume of global trade ranging between $4.5-5 billion.

In India, banana-related economic activities contributes 2.8 per cent to GDP of agriculture, said P V Thomas, chairman of Indian society of agribusiness professionals.

The experts agreed on the need to minimise post-harvest losses through efficient management and promotion of food processing techniques.

"It is important to ensure quality of planting material in order to be competitive in global market, banana growers federation of India president Bhagwat Vishwanath Patil.

There is an urgent need to focus more on productivity and export, Patil said and informed Maharashtra has even achieved a productivity level as high as 63 tonne per hectare.

Interestingly, the average productivity in India is about 28 tonne per hectare, which is well above the world's average productivity of 16 tonne per hectare.

"The productivity of banana could be improved with liquid fertilizers being used in variable proportion rather than in a fixed ratio of basic nutrients, Chadha said.

Middle east and neighbouring countries are the potential export market, said Thomas.

Ministry of agriculture will be spending Rs 2,300 crore in remaining period of 10th five year plan under horticulture mission to ensure diversification of the agriculture sector.

Cultivation of banana would get top most priority in the schemes under horticulture mission, a top farm official said.