|
Strengthening grower organizations, to conserve banana biodiversity in situ through marketing |
|
|
The highlands of East and Central Africa form a secondary centre of banana biodiversity.
Rural and urban families consume over 100 kg of bananas each year. However, as the livelihoods strategies of rural communities become more market oriented, many of the hundred or more indigenous banana cultivars may be lost.
Bioversity has worked with farmers’ associations in southwestern Uganda and northwestern Tanzania, in collaboration with local NGOs and national research organizations to develop marketing strategies which help to conserve banana biodiversity.
The methods and the results are being documented in the resource platform on banana marketing and processing to provide guidelines that may be helpful in other centers of banana diversity in Asia, the Pacific and elsewhere Africa, and indeed in centres of diversity of other crops. |
|
What we do 