Research Areas
Agrobiodiversity, Crops, Ecosystem Management, Market AccessCountries
Ethiopia, SudanTimeline
Start Date: 18 January 2007 | End Date: 17 April 2010Overview
Since the early 2000s, the governments of Sudan and Ethiopia have begun to diversify their traditional agricultural commodity exports to include higher value horticultural exports, including small quantities of vegetables and flowers which have been air-freighted to Europe. Both countries have vast areas of agricultural land with fertile soils, good water sources for irrigation, relatively low labour costs, and dry tropical climates which indicate an excellent potential for expanding horticultural exports. In addition, they are located within easy reach of urban markets in both Europe and the Middle East. Agricultural regions in Sudan and Ethiopia have good road infrastructure to the ports of Djibouti and Port Sudan.
The high value and expanding market for organic bananas has created opportunities for banana production in dry tropical or sub-tropical climates which predominate in Sudan and Ethiopia, where banana leaf diseases are a rarity. Currently, many growers use no pesticides and only limited fertilization on deep alluvial soils to produce “natural” bananas.
This CFC funded project aims to improve rural well being – economically, environmentally and socially by promoting organic banana production and marketing for export. To this end, the project has four objectives:
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To strengthen the capacity of the national private and public sector players in the supply chain to provide up-to-date, vital services and information in a timely fashion for production, post harvest and marketing for effective expansion of organic banana exports. This will improve the access of the banana sectors in Sudan and Ethiopia to worldwide, state-of-the-art organic export banana production and post harvest technologies;
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To establish organic banana production on 160 hectares in two pilot areas with the active participation and training of selected value-chain stakeholders;
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To export certified organic bananas with the active participation and training of selected value-chain stakeholders.
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To strengthen grower marketing associations to capture greater value-added from export of organic bananas with the active participation of small business management specialists.
There have been unavoidable delays and constraints, although funds remain available for extending the implementation period until the end of 2011. The project has made considerable progress towards meeting project objectives, in identifying export markets and growers willing and interested to produce better quality fruit for those markets, and limited exports are now occurring from Sudan to the Middle East. The private sector has signalled an interest for test marketing. The first tissue culture plants have recently been imported to Ethiopia and planted out in growers’ fields. If the varieties prove acceptable, further plants will be purchased in 2011 and it is hoped that tissue culture laboratories will by then have been identified in Ethiopia that can provide a local source of planting material. Limited project support to laboratories in both countries is proposed.
It is proposed to extend project partnership with the University of Arba Minch and GTZ/DED which has a large programme in Ethiopia and which is very interested in finding investors to develop infrastructure such as pack-houses on a commercial basis. In Sudan, there is a need to seek out similar partners, with a view to making links that will help to ensure the sustainability of project interventions after its completion.
Dear Sir,
We are a tissue culture firm based in India, and have been approached several times from private buyers in Sudan for tissue culture banana varieties of elite clones such as Grand Naine and Robista.
We would like information on the banana market, import regulation and the growers in Sudan.
Is it possible for CGIAR to share information with us?
The project in Sudan is being implemented with the Horticulture Sector Administration of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in Khartoum and I am copying this reply to the National Project Manager, Dr. Salah Bakhiet (salba54@yahoo.com). Please follow up with him for more specific information, but I can inform you that this project has previously purchased tissue culture plants from Du Roi in South Africa and the import process is relatively straightforward. The local market is dominated by Dwarf Cavendish, produced on relatively small holdings, by traditional means, but there are a number of investors interested in expanding banana plantations for export, so I think there is growing demand for good quality planting material. I understand that there are also some start-up tissue culture labs in the country looking to produce seedlings; it is possible that they would be interested in collaborating with you.
Your information seems up-to-date but my e-mail is changed to s.babiker11@yahoo.com. In fact there are three big plantations (20-100 hectare in different places) now ready to start exporting banana from Sudan. This will happen after carrying out a shipment trail (using HACCP) to be sending to Europe during this month.
Dear All,
Kindly contact us for Tissue culture banana plants.Pls do check our facilities in website.
Regards
Santosh
Dear All,
We are supplying Tissue culture raised banana plants in Ehiopia. We have already imported Plants and raising plants in the Nursery.
Kindly contact us for supply of TC banana plants and Technical support for cultivation.
Thanks and regards,
Dr Namita Oza
drnimita.Oza@cadilapharma.co.in
كيف الاخبار والاحوال
Your sentence in Arabic means that how are the news and circumstances? Am I right?
Dear all,referring from report that has been written by Wayne Hancock and Salah Bakhiet (2008)I am wondering how is it easy to get a certification on organic banana for export? as converting from natural to organic might seem easy but still requires time and sound baseline information on plant nutrition, pre/post harvest pest and disease status, quarantine at export and import and market acceptance. These need to be established for Sudan for banana as part of the development process leading an export industry for organic bananas. This may not occur within the 3 year time frame of this project because it takes 3 years for the initial certification process from planting and/or existing plantings. However, proving an export system with existing and non organic production will support later the organic exports.
banana exports from sudan facing many problems starting from banana varities such like dwarf cavendish,which is sensitive to teh post harvest handling,traditional production systems,complexity of export goverment procedures and inter-state taxes , poor ifra structure for post harvest treatments.to solve all these problems and others I didn’t menshion we need a massive work from all government and growers and exporters and private sector to develop this promising agricultural sector,specially Sudan have a have vast areas of agricultural land with fertile soils, good water sources for irrigation.from our side we have a Sudanese company called Musanada working in tc plants raising with collaboration of Du roi lab in South Africa,we provide the best quality of tc plants of variety Grand Nain to improve our banana quality for export.
contact:mohannad@musanada-sd.com
What is the cultivation cost of tissue culture banana in ethiopia
We would like to import several 40 ft contaqiners of bananas. what i am looking for are addresses to find the bananas and of course the FOB price
Thanks and best regards
Kurt Moeri
Dear Mr. Kurt Moeri, are you still interested to import bananas? if yes , kindly contact me to the email: (yousef90de@yahoo.de), I working in this field since many years and in many banana producing countries. hope to hear from you!
Dear Yousef,
I am glad to read your comment on this page. In fact the project has ended with many achievements, and big national companies are started to plant banana for export in the near future. It would be good to visit Sudan again to do business with these companies and we will support you on this issue.
Dear Dr. Salah, hope you are well and the banana project too, I found this page by accedent, where I was looking for the sudanese bananas. I was happy to read all the mentioned notices on this page especially I saw your comments. I am at the moment in Germany,hope to hear from you …! with my best regards, my email: yousef90de@yahoo.de
Greetings, I am a subtropical fruits estate manager from South Africa with Experience in banana,macadamia nut and avocado production looking to relocate in africa. I have extensive experience I irrigation and industrial instrumentation. What oppportunities exist for relocation in Africa?