Banana Processing: A Silver Lining during Corona Commotion

Abstract

Recent developments after COVID-19 throw a new hope of utilizing banana. The time has ripened for food industry to look into the alternative sources to sustain their business with the utilization of low cost, high volume produces and convert them into high cost- low volume processed products. Chaos is created with the lockdown, and tremor was evident with the price crashed to Rs. 2/kg of Grand Naine Banana. Traditional varieties like Nendran (Rs. 10/kg), Poovan (Rs. 6/kg) and Ney poovan (Rs. 9/ kg) procurement prices are drastically decreased. With the steep drop in the price, and the disruption in the supply chain, roughly Rs. 6,000.00 crores are lost in business. The share of processed industries in agricultural employment has to be enhanced from the present 0.5% to at least 10% with the enhancement of productivity of workers by retaining the youth in agriculture.