Page 33 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

chapter 2: economic and policy analysis of the banana sector in ecuador and implications for social and environmental sustainability
The structure of this review includes three sections. Section 1 provides a general introduction of the banana industry in Ecuador and includes the ecology, evolution of the industry, and geography of banana production. Section 2 includes an in-depth economic analysis of the banana value chain, covering the key stages and players within the value chain up to the consumer. Section 3 reviews the Ecuador’s current banana policies, its key objectives and the challenges relating to policy implementation. Section 4 includes a general discussion that will identify the key salient economic, environmental, social and governance aspects of sustainability.
2. The banana sector in Ecuador
2.1 Banana ecology and disease
Banana plants derive from the Musa genus (i.e. Musa acuminate, the A genome) and Musa balbisiana (the B genome) and have evolved through a large number of landraces and cultivars.1 Bananas are grown in humid tropical regions and require relatively high temperatures, ranging from 18-30°C, and an ample supply of water throughout the year - between 100 mm and 180 mm a month. Bananas also require deep soil with good drainage. They remove large amounts of soil nutrients with the harvest of the fruit.
Bananas are permanent crops and can be cultivated up to 30 years continuously. As a result, soil fertility declines rapidly after the plant’s first
3-5 years, causing a reduction in the yield of bananas, with soil degradation occurring further after 10-15 years (Chambron, 2000). The depletion of nutrient soil on banana plantations, therefore, significantly hinders sustainability. The land that is abandoned after continuous banana production often is left with severe soil degradation and, thus, cannot be alternatively used. This creates serious income loss and unemployment in neighbouring communities, an example of which has been Costa Rica, where banana companies have abandoned their plantations
in the Caribbean coast of the country due to unsuitable soil, shifting production
to its Pacific coast (Chambron, 2000). In Ecuador, where the majority of banana plantations have been in operation for over 20 years, many of the plantations
are reportedly abandoned and have become incubators for diseases that are spreading to neighbouring plantations.
The vast majority of exported bananas are of the Cavendish variety. These are produced on monocrop plantations with close spacing and plant density, making it highly susceptible to pest and disease outbreaks. The disease vulnerability
also arises from the fact that commercially produced bananas are derived from
a limited number of landraces that reproduce asexually, resulting in a narrow genetic pool and making bananas vulnerable to pests and disease (FAO, 2003).
Most edible bananas are derived from two wild species in the genus Musa (i.e. Musa acuminate, the
A genome and Musa balbisiana (the B genome) (Simmonds and Shepherd, 1955). There are over
500 cultivars of bananas (Stover and Simmonds, 1987; Perrier and Tezenas du Montcel, 1990) that are being grown for many different purposes: for the desert, cooking or cultivars for dual use. This report focuses only on the desert types, in particular the Cavendish variety.
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