Farmers seek investment to turn banana plant into merchandise
St Thomas group notes raw material readily available to make variety of items
Published:Thursday | April 27, 2023 | 12:50 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
LOCAL FARMERS want the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to amplify their calls and encourage the private sector to invest in utilising more of Jamaica’s natural resources to manufacture merchandise distinctive to the island.
They have lamented the ongoing abundance of crop waste across the island and what seems to be a lack of interest in maximising local crops’ potential to create environmentally friendly products that support sustainability.
On Tuesday, members of the Kanga Gully Farmers Group in Lyssons, St Thomas, who spoke with The Gleaner, discussed various uses of the banana plant, stating how the stem could be stripped down to create a wide range of durable items such as table mats, bags, wall plaques, belts, baskets, and rugs.
The banana plant, which matures in roughly nine months, is often deemed a ‘wasteful’ crop because after harvest, only about 12 per cent of the plant itself is used, leaving almost 60 per cent of the biomass wasted.
A banana plant can only bear fruit once before it collapses, succumbs to rot or infection, and then dies.
In 2021, the Business Insider reported that a Ugandan company called TEXFAD had successfully turned banana plant stems into fibre to make household items. The process includes the stems being cut into slender, medium-sized pieces by the workers, who then spread them out to dry in the sun. They are then fed through an extractor, turning the stems into useable fibres, which are laid out to dry once more until they become soft and ready to be used in the weaving process to create products.
The silky nature of the fibres is also used as hair extensions.
Leslie Anderson, a member of the Kanga Gully Farmers Group, agreed that the fibre and other parts from the stem were very strong, a quality that is similar to rope.
“If you have a machine that you can squeeze it, flatten it, so you get the juice out and spread it out, you can put it (through) a drying process then you can get the yarns out and then you can use it in whatever form you want,” Anderson explained.
Adam Francis, secretary of the farmers’ group, told The Gleaner that the FHIA varieties of bananas have larger stalks (nearly 18 inches) with more materials that are currently wasted but could be harvested and used in this way.
He stated that farmers in the area used to export bananas to the United Kingdom and the Cayman Islands years ago and would produce between 30 to 40 boxes of bananas fortnightly.
“You can imagine? If I have 30 this week, Mr Heslop might have 40, the next man might have 30 or so, is a whole lot of the trunks we have. Next week is the same thing ... so if we have persons who are interested and would like to get them, then we can all come together and provide,” he said.
Francis further noted that banana farmers in St Thomas were currently scaling down in their production because there was no market for the crop, particularly for the FHIA varieties.
As a result, the bananas and the soft, nutrient-rich core of the stem are used to feed livestock like pigs and goats along with poultry animals such as chicken.
To reduce the risk of landslides and slippage, the farmers are also using the stems to create barriers around the farm grounds. As a biodegradable product, the stem, over time, contributes nutrients to the soil when it eventually decomposes.
“It takes a little input from somewhere, I don’t know (where) because the local farmers don’t have the wherewithal to do a lot and RADA (Rural Agricultural Development Authority) is not geared in that kind of thing,” Anderson said.
He said that if people were made aware of the opportunities for using the banana plant in this way, farmers would unite to supply interested individuals to “put it into something good”.
“The amount of wastage we have around a farm or around the island, other people like in Thailand and Vietnam and all those places, you don’t find a farm without some place that they can do value-added products. That is not the culture here. That is something that we need to expand on,” Anderson said.
He said that by using technology, youth could assist in formulating a way in which it is used to improve agriculture in Jamaica.