Banana production has influenced the economies and social life in many countries, creating numerous jobs, influencing cultures and even shaping a style of architecture.

Throughout Latin America entire communities revolved around the banana. Founded as part of the original plantations, they have become important centres of rural development. Today, many banana-producing regions have a well-developed infrastructure that includes housing, hospitals, schools and welfare centres. Roads, railways, telephone and electricity lines were constructed to speed up harvesting, packing and shipping operations and whole ports built to export bananas to the markets of North America and Western Europe.

Only about 15% of bananas grown around the world are actually exported. Millions of smallholder farmers in Africa, South-East Asia and Northern Latin America grow bananas for household consumption or local markets.

The world’s biggest banana-growing country, India, consumes its entire harvest – hardly surprising with over a billion mouths to feed. In the Philippines bananas are the leading fruit crop in terms of area, volume and value and the country also happens to be the world’s main exporter of banana chips! Production is mainly on a small scale with family farms cultivating bananas for home consumption or local trade. However, in recent decades, the Philippines has also become a major banana exporter, primarily to Japan and China but also to other South-East Asian countries and the Middle East.

Bananas are important staples in much of Central, Western and Eastern Africa. Unlike Latin America where the Cavendish dominates, African farms cultivate local and exotic varieties. Most farms are small-scale operations but the importance of bananas as a staple food cannot be underestimated. In Uganda, for example, annual per capita consumption was around 243 kg in the mid-1990s and in Uganda, Rwanda, Gabon and Cameroon, bananas account for 12-27% of the population’s daily calorie intake. Here, as in many other developing countries, bananas are a crucial staple crop.