Open the Fairer Fruit report. Other regions such as Central America and the Caribbean include a large number of banana exporters. The banana is a perennial plant that replaces itself. In a number of countries such as Brazil and India, large amounts of bananas are produced but consumed mostly locally. 9/ How is banana production cost structured? 2014. Another fundamental issue from the banana war had emerged: initially, Washington imposed sanctions unilaterally, just weeks before the WTO was to meet about this issue. Get quality Bananas at Tesco. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The banana flower appears in the sixth or seventh month. Examples of diversification include other crops, and other industries (e.g. Bananas are the favouritefruit in our grocery basket and are grown by millions of people, working on small-scale farms in tropical regions. They need legitimate institutions like clean courts to battle monopolies and help building them. As an aside, the above quote in the heading is from then-US Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, Madeline Albright, regarding the Iraq crisis in 1998, but very applicable here too.). 1/ How many banana varieties exist and what are the differences? 22/ What does the FAO Intergovernmental Group on Bananas and Tropical Fruits do? Not possible. Production in both countries mostly serves the domestic market. The story of its rise and demise, which Chapman details, almost created the banana industry and what became termed the banana republics of Central America. These are mostly cooking bananas that are a popular and important staple food. There are over 1000 different varieties of bananas growing around the world, subdivided into 50 groups. As one of the first tropical fruits to be exported, bananas were a cheap way to bring the tropics to North America and Europe.