Farmers of western UP go bananas as crop catches fancy of the sugarcane growers

MEERUT: Nothing catches the fancy of western UP farmers more than the promise of a good return combined with a fuss-free life offered by a low-maintenance crop. Sugarcane fit the bill and filled the vast swathes of the region for generations. But heads are turning now, and bananas are making inroads into the sugarcane fields, slowly but steadily.

From around 250 hectares last year, patches of banana plantation are dotting about 466 hectares this year.


“It offers twice the return as compared to the sugarcane, and is also almost disease free ,” says a smiling Rajnish Tyagi in Datyana village of Hapur, who, while growing up, never saw any other crop than sugarcane around him. Farmers are taking up banana plantations in over 12 districts of western UP, including Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahr and Baghpat.

Experts see a bright future for the cash crop in the region.

“The bananas being grown in these 466 hectares will meet just 10% of the requirements of their districts. Rest will come from outside,” an agriculture scientist said.

People in the region eat bananas grown in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and in a few pockets of UP like Maharajganj, Lucknow and Sitapur.

Vice-chancellor of Meerut’s Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Agriculture University, RK Mittal, recounted the banana’s journey in the region so far.

“In 2017, the department of biotechnology (DBT) entrusted us with the task of developing multiple saplings of disease-free bananas through a method called tissue culture. The three-year programme had the target to train 100 farmers and motivate them to cultivate banana crops here. Today, we have around 280 farmers benefiting from the initiative and the cultivation area is only increasing each season,” Mittal said.

RS Sengar, a professor of biotechnology at the agriculture university, adds, “The university through the tissue culture technique developed multiple saplings of special variety of disease-free banana in much lesser time than the conventional methods and motivated farmers to sow the carbohydrate-rich fruit which yields more than the double as compared to the sugarcane.”

Farmers growing bananas are quite upbeat. “I shifted to the banana plantation a couple of years ago and never regretted it. On an average a farmer earns Rs 10,000 per bigha of land under cane cultivation. Banana production in the same area of land yields double the earnings,” says Rajinder Singh of Bijnor.

There is geographical advantage too.

“We are very close to Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi as compared to eastern UP. We are certainly better placed,” said Tyagi. In the eastern UP, the banana is grown in about 67,000 hectares of land.

“It is just a beginning here. Very soon bananas will catch up with the sugarcane here,” a scientist said.