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Production Overview

THE GEOGRAPHY OF A TROPICAL FRUIT:
BANANA REPUBLICS?

Bananas are the fruit of large herbs of the genus Musa. They probably originated in tropical areas of Southeast Asia and spread through South Asia into Africa from where they became known to Europeans in Greek and Roman times. Much later, they were taken as plantation crops to Caribbean islands and to Central and South America by European colonisers.

They have become one of the world's most important tropical food crops. Some cultivated varieties ripen into sweet fruit with high sugar content while other species (plantains) develop high starch content and are used in basic Cooking -- boiled, fried or ground into starchy meal. In this form, bananas have long been a staple food in East Africa and parts of Pacific Asia.

Sweet bananas, (usually traded as 'dessert bananas' and consumed as fresh fruit), contain 22 per cent carbohydrate and are high in potassium, low in protein but also fats, and good sources of vitamins A and C.

The map below shows the main producing countries which are:

• India (with 14 per cent of world production in 2002) and Bangladesh
• South America, Brazil (12 per cent), Ecuador (8 per cent), Colombia (4 per cent) and Venezuela
• the Caribbean and Central America, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Dominican Republic and West Indian islands (12 per cent of production)
• Africa, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Guinea, Nigeria and the Canary Islands
• Pacific Asia, the Philippines (8 per cent), Indonesia (5 per cent), China and Thailand

Australia is unique among developed countries in being self-sufficient in banana production from tropical production in North Queensland and sub-tropical production from southeast Queensland the Coffs Harbour area of New South Wales. Australia does not export bananas and imports are not permitted because of quarantine regulations. These are designed to keep its island biosphere free of the wide variety of diseases and insect pests flourishing in most tropical banana-producing countries.

Despite their widespread production throughout the tropics, bananas have became so important to export income in several of the Caribbean and Central American producers that the term `banana republics' has been coined to refer to developing countries whose exports are dominated by a single (unprocessed) commodity thus making them vulnerable to periodic economic crises and high foreign debt, especially at times of low export prices or over-production.