BANANA VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS FOR DETECTING FACTORS RESPONSIBLE TO POST-HARVEST DISEASES

Abstract

A survey was conducted to analyze Banana value chain and to determine postharvest problems

at farmer and traders level. The survey was conducted during the periods of August, 2019 to February, 2020 in the Dinajpur district and three markets as well as 40 retailer shops of Dhaka city. Value chain was analyzed by the combination of qualitative and quantitative questionnaire methods that included primary survey focusses group discussions, answering questionnaire and informal interviews. Value chain analysis clearly revealed that Banana growing areas are increasing every year gradually and most of the orchards have 250-700 plants and the popular Banana varieties were Amrita Shagor, Sabri and Champa. Farmers used manure and fertilizers in Banana orchards in regular basis. All of the farmers were used to different type activities without maintaining any hygiene to harvest Bananas. Van and Nosimon are the most common transport for short distance carrying and Truck for long distant carrying. The common marketing channel is Grower> Paikar> Bepari> Retailer >Consumer. Lack of modern storage and transport, processing industries, high margin traders, no use of any packaging system, transport and production cost, and uncertainty of market price were also reported as difficulties in value chain of Bananas. Among intermediaries, the highest loss was recorded for Retailer (23.58%) followed by Piker (1.31%) and Bepari (5.85%). The highest incidence disease was observed for anthracnose 18.73% and crown rot 8.89% during August to October. The lowest incidence was observed for anthracnose 2.58% and crown rot 2.08% during November to February. The postharvest loss of Banana was found 37.21% in total.