THE area under banana cultivation is increasing. Fed up with the sugar cane’s pricing and payment-related issues, growers have started switching over to banana cultivation. It ensures better and timely returns — something that the growers are in dire need of.

The increase in the banana acreage is in areas that have either sweet groundwater zones or are located in head reaches of perennial Nara and Rohri canals of the Sukkur Barrage. Influential political families, bureaucrats and uniformed officials own agricultural lands in these areas. They usually manage to get irrigation water flows — sometimes at the cost of the lower riparian growers who own lands in the same command areas of the two major canals that feed tail-end areas of Mirpurkhas and Badin districts.

Being a high-delta crop, banana grows mostly in Sindh, which meets Pakistan’s 90 per cent consumption. According to the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, banana was cultivated on 26,300 hectares in Sindh in 2014-15. Its countrywide cultivation in the same year was on 28,200ha. As per figures released by Sindh’s agriculture department, banana grew on 28,200ha in the province in 2017-18. Its production was 109,472 tonnes in the same year.

Banana prices remained on the lower side until recently because of larger supplies. But the rate started rising when supplies dwindled towards the end of October

“Banana farming is impressively rising in Tando Allahyar, Matiari and Mirpurkhas. This increase is largely because of the dispute over the sugar cane’s price and clearance of growers’ liabilities. Growers who usually cultivated sugar cane now tend to switch over to banana cultivation. They also opt for intercropping of chillies to make an extra buck during the same season,” says Karamullah Sand, a banana grower from Tando Allahyar, a most fertile district in lower Sindh.

Banana is a 16-18-month crop, which is usually in full swing in September-October. Prices remained on the lower side until recently because of larger supplies. But they started going up when supplies dwindled. The rate began rising at the end of October. Depending on the size of the crop, its production continues throughout the year.

Mr Sand says the going rate was Rs600-625 per 40 kilograms until Oct 17 this year. But on Oct 22, the rate rose to Rs700 per 40kg. It shows that either the exports to Kabul have begun or the supplies from farms have started declining. Such a situation always necessitates an increase in the rate.

The popular local variety under cultivation is Basrai or Bombay. Besides, an Australian variety called Williams has been under cultivation since the 1970s. Until the mid-2000s, Thatta district’s riverine area stood out in banana cultivation within Sindh. But the bunchy top disease wiped out banana from the coastal district.

Later, super-floods in 2010 and a flow of 603,084 cusecs in 2016 inundated the district’s riverine area and damaged the entire banana crop. The area is located between the two embankments of the mighty Indus. Lands in this area are leased out by the forest and revenue departments to influential families and individuals.

Tando Allahyar-based banana grower Imdad Ali Nizamani says the crop cycle usually remains the same with slight changes in overall production figures. Luckily, the crop remained unaffected by frost bite in the last three years. Frost bite hits if the temperature drops below six degrees, he says. A temperature of 15-35 degrees suits it, he adds. “We need to pay serious attention to improving the quality of the fruit given its export potential,” he says.

Farmers point out that although the area under banana cultivation has increased, the average per-acre production has dropped due to water shortages. The area of cultivation is increasing in Naseer, Jamrao and Mithrao canal systems, which are governed under the Rohri and Nara canal system that feed areas on the left bank of the Indus. “Growers ensure water supplies to banana to protect their monetary interests,” says Mr Sand.

Like the major crops of wheat, sugar cane, cotton and paddy, banana is also a cash crop. Umerkot-based cotton grower Mir Amanullah Talpur has cultivated banana on 32 acres out of his total landholding of 850 acres. He says the purpose of cultivating banana is to meet miscellaneous expenditures relating to farm management. The crop survives in the lower parts of Sindh while extreme cold in upper parts affects it adversely, he says.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 29th, 2018