Karen Madden-James in Jamaica and BBC Caribbean team

	Bananas: still big business in Jamaica

They've developed an apparently winning formula for keeping the industry from slipping further.

The strategy is a combination of niche marketing and developing their own value-added products such as banana chips to keep the industry afloat.

Perhaps more importantly, Jamaican banana industry oficials say they are selling more of the fruit locally, including to the tourist trade.

When Jamaica decided to discontinue the export of banana there were moans of trepidation amongst some local farmers.

But some two years after that decision those fears and concerns are beginning to recede.

Hobbled by the loss of preferential treatment in Europe, the sector was dealt a body blow in 2008 by Tropical Storm Gustav which wiped out banana trees and left farmers pondering their fate.

Paying off

But cultivators who stayed in banana production and renewed their focus on the local market are now raking in higher returns.

Agriculture Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton told BBC Caribbean that initiatives such as a European Union funded programme focusing on local consumption has driven the effort.

“We launched an ‘eat local’ campaign, in conjunction with the European Union (EU), to promote more local consumption of the product.

We are now in dialogue to establish ripening houses for the value-added processing, as ripened bananas fetch a better price.”

Dr Tufton also pointed out that there’s been a breakthrough in the key tourism sector.

“The market, particularly in the tourist trade, has responded favourably,” he said.

	Some Jamaican farmers say they are glad they stayed in the industry

Devon Plunkett, a 30 year veteran in the banana business
concedes that the challenges have been tremendous.

But, he told BBC Caribbean, he is happy he stuck with it.

“Luckily for us we have a local market and (which is) growing well.”

He also said that what they earn from bananas locally is as good as what's offered by the EU for banana exports.

“The price we get locally compared to what we are getting in Europe is almost the same price.”

In fact, he’s of the view that the price of bananas in Jamaica “is better”.

EU banana deal

Last December the EU and Latin American banana producing nations signed an agreement ending the longest trade dispute in European Union history.

In a deal reluctantly accepted by some regional banana growers, high EU tariffs on Latin American bananas were cut, further increasing pressure on the region’s long-established banana market in Europe, particularly Britain.

Some Caribbean countries had said that their economies will be devastated by the deal.

A previous World Trade Organisation ruling had declared that the prefenrial access granted to Caribbean bananas violated global free trade.

The essential element cuts the tariff on bananas to US$114 a tonne by 2016 with an initial cut to US$148.

The previous tariff was US$176.

A compensation package was also put in place for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) banana growing countries.

EU help

In the case of Jamaica, banana farmer Devon Plunkett, he has high praise for assistance from the EU, which established a facility in St Mary to assist those who had planned to diversify production.

The EU's assistance programme is intended to help the country respond to the increased market liberalisation of the banana sector by improving competitiveness.

An official statement said “it also seeks to support economic diversification and social resilience in areas affected by banana's decline.”