Pakistan on path to reverse declining trend in banana yield with China’s help

by Khalid Aziz

ISLAMABAD, May 29 (Gwadar Pro) - Pakistan remained a key player in banana production with the highest total yield of 163,500 tonnes in the fiscal year 2005-06. Ever since, the country has been observing a declining trend in banana production, which fell to 135,000 tonnes per annum in 2017, a 2020 report of the Planning Commission of Pakistan states. The report identifies that Pakistan has the lowest annual production of banana with 4 tonnes per hectare, as compared with an average 21 tonnes per hectare in China. China has also achieved up to 60 tonnes per hectare yield of the fruit in some areas, according to data available on internet.

However, scientists at the National Institute of Genomics and Advanced Biotechnology (NIGAB), Islamabad are reversing the trend by introducing 4 new varieties of banana, which have over 40 tonnes per hectare yield, 10 times higher than the existing average production of the fruit in the country.

“We have successfully grown 1 million plants of NIGAB-1 and NIGAB-2 varieties over 1,000 acres area in Sindh province, home of Pakistan’s banana cultivation. The varieties have been registered by Pakistan’s Federal Seed Certification Department and the outcomes are very much satisfactory,” said Dr Ali, member of plant sciences with Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC).

Dr Ali established the NIGAB in 2016 as its founding director-general and still supervises research activities at the institute. Recently, Turkey has placed a big order for production of our NIGAB-1 and NIGAB-2 varieties, he said.

“This success was not possible without the help of South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou,” Dr Ali said.

Pakistan’s banana production went down sharply during the last decade after the unauthorized import of banana varieties from the Panama Republic. The plants developed viruses earlier unknown in Pakistan, which also contaminated the indigenous varieties.

“It was then when we approached the South China Agricultural University to overcome the problem,” Dr Ali said, “The University provided us with germplasms of 14 Chinese varieties of banana and trained our staff to modify the same according to our own climate. Also, during the research, we used to send back our work for analyses to the South China Agricultural University, as we lacked the necessary equipment.” 

According to Dr Ali, Pakistan will soon procure a $182 million worth of DNA sequencing equipment from China and after that we will not need to send our samples to China. “We are hopeful of registering the NIGAB-3 and NIGAB-4 varieties after getting the necessary equipment from China,” he said.

Dr Ali was optimistic that these 4 new varieties developed with China’s help will not only enable Pakistan to regain its lost position but its banana production could surpass all previous records. He said that NIGAB was involving private sector in mass-scale production of these new varieties, which are low cost and higher yield,  to match the growing demand.