A woman presents French Caribbean bananas February 22, 2015 at the Agricultural Show in Paris (AFP / Patrick Kovarik )
Banana Martinique and Guadeloupe had out all the stops at agricultural show this year, wearing her new blue-white-red headband and ensuring be the most sustainable banana the world. But all this fuss is it really based on?
“We have the cleanest banana world and the most environmentally friendly. And social, it is an example,” argued Eric Lucy, president of the Union of Banana producer groups of Guadeloupe and Martinique (UGPBAN).
“We are at 50% of pesticides” between 2008 and 2013 and “social, when we pay 15 euros salary, an Ecuadorian pays 1 euro, “he added.
To surf fashion of economic patriotism and improve the holding stalls in supermarkets, the French industry has to Moreover decided to add a blue-white-red band on the hands of three to six fruit from October
An original sign is added to the orange labels. “Banana Guadeloupe and Martinique. ” And must afford to hire 160 people in the port of Dunkirk.
For the French producers intend to cultivate their difference from the Chiquita banana and other sisters in Latin America or Africa, communicate passionately on its progress due to the plan sustainable banana.
French Caribbean bananas are presented February 22, 2015 at the Agricultural Show in Paris (AFP / Patrick Kovarik)
This is the “culmination of 10 years of research and experimentation”
-. real Efforts –
C ‘ True, says Jean-Michel Risede, CIRAD researcher (International Center for Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development), “they are involved for 10 years in a renewal of their modes of production.”
Recognizing they went far, it confirms that they have managed to halve the use of pesticides in five years and “it’s not a point of detail” because the use of pesticides continues to grow in almost all sectors despite the reduction plan (Ecophyto) of the government.
How did they get there? “They came out of a monoculture system by reintroducing crop rotations, involving other cultures. They added habitat for some organisms,” as many production routes that reduce pest pressure, lists the researcher, specializing in banana cultivation
Result:. no more insecticide is sprayed into the French banana and herbicide use has been drastically reduced
French Caribbean bananas are presented February 22, 2015 at the Agricultural Show in Paris (AFP / Patrick Kovarik)
According to figures by the producers, six pounds of herbicide per hectare per year are sprayed in the French Antilles, when the Belize or Costa Rica are at 70 pounds.
Rest agronomic impasse mushrooms.
The banana is the best-selling fruit after the apple. But one of the treaties also because produced mainly in the humid tropics, it is very vulnerable to fungal attack.
The resurgence of Fusarium wilt, called Panama disease threatens elsewhere current world production. For now, this fungus is confined to the Middle East and Africa and it has not crossed the Atlantic but diet UN (FAO) has launched an alarm call in April.
In the Caribbean, it is for now the black leaf streak disease that disrupts production.
This generates ten treatments per year, but they are “distilled treatments wisely “and farmers have also become used to remove all parts of necrotic leaves to reduce the number of times per year.
While in Latin America, “they do a routine treatment, a two-week, 40 to 90 passages per year,” says the researcher.
With these progress, the producers are now entering sustainable banana II program
The goal:. continue on the path of agroecology and find new varieties resistant to these diseases.
Basic research today knowing one variety – the Cavendish – is grown on a good half of the banana plantations in the world. A lack of diversity which is a huge threat especially if a disease would spread to all production areas, as a risk to the Panama disease today.
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