Centro Ecológico Banana production methods A comparative study André Luiz Gonçalves and Jim R. Kernaghan July 2014 Banana report – 2nd draft. July 04, 2014 Acknowledgements Centro Ecológico and the authors of this study wish to thank all organizations that contributed to its completion. We include in our appreciation the various ecological farmers’ associations in Brazil which provided information about organic banana production. In the Dominican Republic we wish to thank the Institute for Development of Associative Economy (IDEAC – Instituto de Desarrollo de la Economía Asociativa) and the COOPPROBATA banana producers´ cooperative. We thank also the indispensable participation of Dr. Eduardo Salas, an agronomist who helped us in our field visits to banana production farms in Costa Rica. And finally, we would like to express our deep appreciation and gratitude to the many farmers of the three countries that were visited, people who patiently provided us with relevant information concerning banana production. 1 Banana report – 2nd draft. July 04, 2014 Index Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 1 I. Background and Context ................................................................................................... 3 I.1. Some basic elements of banana cultivation ............................................................................................................................... 6 I.2. Methodological Strategy ................................................................................................................................................................... 9 II. Banana conventional production ................................................................................... 10 ll.1. Establishing the crop ....................................................................................................................................................................... 10 II.2. Crop management ........................................................................................................................................................................... 12 II.3. Harvesting, transport, and processing...................................................................................................................................... 17 II.4. Marketing/distribution.................................................................................................................................................................... 20 III. Organic banana production ........................................................................................... 21 III.1. Establishing the crop ...................................................................................................................................................................... 21 III.2. Crop management .......................................................................................................................................................................... 22 III.3. Collection, transport, and processing ...................................................................................................................................... 30 III.4. Marketing/distribution .................................................................................................................................................................. 33 IV. Final remarks .................................................................................................................. 35 V. Main references ............................................................................................................... 37 Appendix .............................................................................................................................. 38 2 Banana report – 2nd draft. July 04, 2014 I. Background and Context The banana is one of the most produced and commercialized fruits in the world. According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) the area harvested in 2012 was approximately five million hectares, and production was roughly 102 million tons. Brazil, India, and the Philippines are the principal countries in terms of cultivated area, representing 722, 481 and 454 thousand hectares respectively. In 2011, international commercialization of banana embodied approximately 19 million tons of product. The main exporting countries were Ecuador, the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Colombia, while the main importers of the fruit were United States, Belgium, and the Russian Federation. Table 01 summarizes the international marketing patterns of bananas. Table 1. World trade – major importers and exporters of bananas in 2011 (source: FAO 2014)1 Major importing Major exporting Volume (x 1,000 t) Volume (x 1,000 t) countries countries United States of 4,122 Ecuador 5,778 America Belgium 1,340 Philippines 2,046 Russian Federation 1,306 Costa Rica 1,913 Germany 1,288 Colombia 1,828 Japan 1,064 Guatemala 1,425 United Kingdom 1,019 Belgium 1,272 United States of China, mainland 818 516 America Italy 661 Honduras 489 Iran (Islamic 615 Germany 366 Republic of) France 567 Dominican Republic 330 Others 6,114 Others 275 World imports World exports 18,919 18,721 (Total) (Total) Thus the crop is important to millions of families, most notably in various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, and Guatemala where exportation of the product represents a significant source of income. In Brazil, the fruit is cultivated in all regions of the country, from north to south, and covers an area of approximately 480,000 hectares. Several production methods characterize the banana culture, including the simplest manner of cultivation in which farmers merely collect the fruit, to highly sophisticated 1Some countries such as Belgium, United States, and Germany appear in the statistics as exporters even though they are not banana producers. This is characteristic of the banana trade and is not necessarily related with production. 3 Banana report – 2nd draft. July 04, 2014 production systems designed to produce the banana for the external market using intensive labor, advanced technology, and a wide number of chemical inputs. To respond to the increasing demand and the expectations imposed by a competitive market, farmers are compelled to use substantial amounts of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and other technologies which can cause serious and negative impact upon both the environment and the health of millions of people, including farmers, workers and consumers. Taking all this into consideration, there is a growing interest from consumers, especially in northern countries, for responsible production and more equitable ways of marketing and distributing the product. Considering this potential negative impact, while believing that it’s possible to establish commercial relationships that promote social and environmental advancement, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) requested a study comparing the two banana production systems – the organic and the conventional. For the purposes of this paper, then, an organic system is that which refrains from using chemical fertilizers or pesticides, while the conventional systems analyzed here are those that employ highly intensive inputs and that are oriented toward servicing external markets. The main thrust of this work, then, is to compare these two systems – the organic to the conventional. The description of the organic production system presented in this paper has been based upon a form of cultivation adopted by farmers in two specific geographical regions: the northern coast of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil (also known as the Torres Region), and the province of Azua de Compostela in the Dominican Republic. In these two areas several small-producer families, supported by civil society organizations, have successfully adopted organic banana cultivation practices. In the case of the Brazilian farmers, production is completely focused upon the internal/domestic market, while the banana yield produced by the members of COOPROBATA in the Dominican Republic is mainly destined for export to the U.S. and European markets. An analysis of these two different processes has allowed us to draw certain broad generalizations concerning the organic banana production chain – from production to marketing procedures for both the local and the international markets. Brief descriptions of these two approaches are presented in the paragraphs below. The Torres Region, as implied above, is located on the northern coast of the state of Rio Grande do Sul bordering the state of Santa Catarina. This region is also considered the southern boundary of the Atlantic Forest Biome. The climate is subtropical, with average temperatures ranging between 12 °C in the winter and 27 °C in the summer. Rainfall is around 1,200 mm and is well distributed throughout the year. This rural area is characterized by a predominance of family farms where the average land-holding is approximately ten hectares. Banana, the main crop of this area, is grown upon the steep sides of slopes while the flat lands are typically devoted to pasture, sugar cane, cassava, and a wide variety of other vegetables. Along the river bottom-lands, paddy rice is the predominant crop. The first organic production systems emerged in the early 1990’s, as a response to the widespread