Red bananas flood Tamil Nadu's markets

Red bananas

Red bananas used to be a fruit for the elite in Tamil Nadu, but now, the bananas which were previously priced at Rs 10-12 per fruit, are selling for Rs 5-6 in the city, and with the price decreasing, the sweet red fruit is rapidly selling out in most neighbourhood shops.

"The unprecedented supply of red bananas from all over Tamil Nadu has led to the fall in price," says K Balaji, proprietor of Sri Varadharajan Suppliers, which deals with bananas in Koyambedu. "On average, 50-60 lorries supply normal variety of bananas, including red bananas, to Koyambedu. But, over the past few weeks, every lorry has been coming in with around 30 per cent red bananas," he said.

Echoing his view, Tamil Nadu Flower and Vegetable and Fruit Traders Welfare Association general secretary V Govindarajan says, "When supply exceeds demand, then prices begin to crash. Moreover, retailers are selling without a big margin. Since red banana used to sell for around Rs 10-12, retailers, who usually keep a margin of 20-30 per cent, now accept a lower margin of around Rs 1-2. This brought down the cost of red bananas to around Rs 5-6."

Experts state various reasons for the good supply: for the past three years, many European countries have been rejecting bananas from south Asia, including India and Pakistan, meaning growers have changed to cultivating red bananas to cover their losses from normal banana exports.

Tamil Nadu Banana Growers Federation treasurer V A Subramanium explains, "Though red bananas take more time to yield than normal varieties, many farmers began to plant them to cover the losses. Since red bananas have medicinal value and were priced quite high, many farmers in the areas like Sathyamangalam, Ottanchathiram, Dindigul, Theni, Salem, Gobichettipalayam began large-scale plantations of banana. So, production jumped up and free flow of the banana supply to cities and towns resulted in the price crash."

Bananas are seeing an unprecedented fall in price, which has made the farmers sell as low as Rs 25 per kilo, which are later sold by retailers to around Rs 40 per kg.

In India, banana ranks first in production and third in area among fruit crops. Banana accounts for 13 per cent of the total area and 33 per cent of the production of fruits. A 2010 data shows that production is highest in Maharashtra followed by Tamil Nadu. Within India, Maharashtra has the highest productivity of 65.70 metric tonnes per hectare, against the national average of 30.5 tonnes per hectare.