Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicolas Naranja
I have polyclonal culture on my own farm, so I am well aware of it. However, the way that the big players keep cost down is by selling a single product and designing everything around it. Everything is designed for Cavendish bananas from the boxes to the reefer ships. And when you move to a polyclonal culture, it takes more management skill as different banana varieties have different requirements. Plants with more erect leaves like Grand Nain and Enano Común can be spaced much tighter than plants with a lower leaf angle distribution such as FHIA-17 or Dwarf Nam Wah
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Nicolas,
I acknowledge your argument. I realise that the price maker is the Cavendish cartel.
I always suggest meticulously planning polyclonal fields in advance so you get to design (in crystallographic terms) a close packed 2D structure.
You take into consideration the ecological requirements of each variety in the planning.
Yes, it takes far more management - but a lot of the management is is in the forethought; and the field management remains comparable within an order of magnitude.
You're obviously not the average farmer. The "average" farmer is so caught up trying to tread water that she/he does not have time to innovate or to apply and test a new approach.
On Trinidad as the farmers of late tried to produce more bananas, the imported Cavendish price is dropped to squeeze them further. I guess that the canny importers simply source the rejects that cannot be sold on the North American markets.
So I can now buy imported Cavendish bananas on the street for about 60 cents a lb; and really crappy ones for 30 cents a lb.
Fortunately the farmers have "Silk" (manzano), "Sucrier" (pisang mas) and plantains that are not handled by the regional exporters. These can get $1.00 - $1.20 a lb.
Remember Trinidad is a country with an energy distorted PPP per capita GDP in excess of $20,000; and good agricultural land (if you can get it at all) goes for $5,000 - $30,000 an acre.
Try to make money with bananas or cacao in an environment like that!!!
One solution (which you've adopted) is to not focus on Cavendish types.
Additionally, with the plantains, I've now abandoned
even suggesting traditional AAB plantains for the newer hybrid plantains - germplasm of which is, of course, near impossible to get because of silly import restrictions.
You can easily import banana fruit - but you can't easily import banana germplasm.
I don't mean to be snide or pejorative - but I think this sort of policy lends new meaning to the phrase "Banana Republic".
shannon
shannon.di.corse@gmail.com