Bananas in Africa

Hi everyone!

I am Arthur and I am going to tell you more about bananas is Africa.

Africa isn’t the biggest producer of bananas. No, that is South-America.

They think that some settlers from Indonesia settled the bananas in Madagaskar and on the Comoren. From there the bananas spread out over a big part of Africa. Later, some Europeans brought the cultivation of bananas over to the middle of America. There are various types of bananas unique to Africa. The East African Highland cooking Banana (the EAHB) accounts for 70 procent of all bananas grown on this continent. The people living in the highlands form the largest banana-consuming community from all over the world.

Varieties

You have many varieties of bananas in Africa. Like in Tanzania, there are 20 varieties of bananas but not all of these are suitable for eating. For example, the plantains are good for cooking and the beer bananas are very good for making beer or wine. Of course there are also the bananas you can eat. These bananas grow everywhere and are consumed as a snack. One of these is the Cavendish banana, which dominates the export markets worldwide. This banana is now being planted in increasing quantities on large commercial farms in western, eastern and southern Africa.

Fun fact

Did you know that the EAHB is grown at an altitude of 1400-2000 meters above main sealevel? That's why they call it the East African 'Highland' Banana.

Did you know that seeds are not available? This means that all the bananas are grown from the shoots that appear underneath an existing banana plant. Once the fruit is harvested the plant is cut exactly in half. This allows all the nutrients in the plant to be directed to the smaller shoots.