Banana Farming, Cultivars, Uses, and Marketing of Nkore in Southwestern Uganda

Small scale banana cultivation for self-consumption and domestic market use yields almost half of banana production of the world. These bananas are more frequently cooked as staple food and snack, and used for brewing than eaten in the raw form. Each banana farming area has developed a unique set of cultivars°, cropping systems, and uses of bananas. Humid zones in the southern part of Ugandan, as well as Rwanda and western part of Tanzania, are famous areas for fanning unique banana cultivar subgroup called the East African highland bananas' (AAA-EA). As a conventional cropping system, it has extremely high productivity and supports local people in areas with one of the highest population density in Africa. However, in Uganda with population migration, land shortage, and pest and disease prevalence, areas that produced and supplied bananas to urban areas have drastically changed in the last half century. This paper reports the current situation of banana-based livelihood system of Nkore, formerly agro-pastoralists in Southwestern Uganda, presently the main banana producing area in Uganda. We describe their farming system, cultivars, uses, and distribution of bananas.