Market Of Banana

Market
Bananas are the main fruit in international trade and the most popular one in the world. In terms of volume they are the first exported fruit, while they rank second aftercitrus fruit in terms of value. Banana is a very delicate commodity on economic, social, environmental and political grounds. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) Statistics estimations, world total exports of banana accounted for 16,8 million tonnes in 2006. Bananas are also a very important staple commodity for many developingcountries, together with wheat, rice or corn, hence the relevance of bananas for food security. Some of the main banana producing countries, such as India or Brazil, are hardly involved ininternational trade. In fact, only about one fifth of total banana production is internationally traded . Nevertheless, the share of banana trade in world banana production increasedslightly in the last decades (from around 18% in the sixties and seventies to over 22% in the 1990s and 2000s). The international banana market shows a highly regional character.

Thebanana industry is a very important source of income, employment and export earnings for major banana exporting countries, mainly developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, aswell as in Asia and Africa. According to FAO statistics, world banana exports are valued a total of US$5,8 billion in 2006, making them clearly a vital source of earnings to manycountries. A strong bond exists between banana-generated income and household food security. Export volume or price changes bring about income changes for those directly employed in bananaproduction, both as smallholder farmers and as wage earners on banana plantations. In addition, secondary and tertiary industries and their employees also feel the impacts of those changes".