The breeding team at National Banana Research Program is developing a product profile to enable release of banana hybrids that precisely meet farmer expectations.

A happy banana farmer appreciating his produce.

According to Dr. Ivan Kabiita Arinaitwe, the head of the NARO Banana Breeding programme, this product profile will help release banana hybrids that precisely meet the farmer expectations. “These hybrids will be having added value from the previously released ones.”

Being guided by the product profile in breeding, he says the team is now able to determine the hybrids that are more acceptable to the farmer than before.

“For example, if the precious ones were targeting black sigatoka and acceptability of like 80%, this time we are targeting black sigatoka, weevil resistance, nematode resistance and acceptability of above 90%,” says Dr. Arinaitwe.

Since 1990’s, NARO has bred and released seven banana (matooke) hybrids with high yielding coupled with resistances to common pests and diseases. These include Kabana6H, Kabana7H, NAROBan1(M9), NAROBan2(M19), NAROBan3(M20), NAROBan4(M25) and NAROBan5(M27).

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In line with the Government’s National development plan II; 2021-2025, which focuses on industrialization to drive the country’s economic development, NARO’s Banana Research team has identified ways to develop products extractable from the whole banana plant.

Above: An Australian green resistant starch branded product.

Industrial ethanol and Green Resistant Starch are some of the two products the banana researchers are already working on.

“We are already extracting Green Resistant Starch from plantain, bogoya and East African highland bananas and Industrial ethanol from corm and we are confident about the results so far,” says Dr. Jerome Kubiriba, a Senior Researcher at NARO.

These efforts have direct positive impact on the socio-economic status of the Banana farmers and largely on the economy of the country through increased export from increased and improved production of the fruit.

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Banana Research Program has developed a banana variety to alleviate the Vitamin A Deficiency in Uganda.

In Uganda, micronutrient deficiency is the third most important public health problem after HIV/AIDS and malaria. Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) affects 20-35% of children below five years of age and the same proportion of women of child-bearing age. It leads to permanent blindness and pre-disposes affected subjects to many infectious diseases leading to over 50,000 deaths annually in Uganda.

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Rain couldn’t stop hundreds of farmers from turning up for Uganda National Banana Research Program (NBRP) first ever Matooke Food Festival held in Nakaseke district on Friday 7th May 2021.

The event attracted more than 200 banana farmers and other stakeholders.

The festival was aimed at promoting the uptake of the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO)’s hybrid bananas varieties resistant to pests and diseases at a large scale.

The event saw hundreds of locals flock Mifunya C/U primary school as early as 12:00pm for the fun filled matooke food festival despite the heavy rain pour earlier that day.

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