Bananas grow in a wide band circling the planet’s warm middle, in 135 countries and territories across the tropics and subtropics.1Improving the understanding of banana. Banana-producing countries portal But the map of where bananas grow looks very different from the map of where shop bananas come from, because most bananas never leave the country that grows them. For many families in Africa and Asia, the banana is also a daily staple cooked like a potato, not a sweet snack.
The Banana Belt and the Biggest Growers
On a world map, draw a band around the equator. In the Americas it runs roughly from Mexico down to southern Brazil, and it also takes in the Caribbean. In Africa it covers the humid west and center of the region south of the Sahara, plus the East African highlands around Lake Victoria. In Asia it stretches from India through southern China to Indonesia and the Philippines, and the Pacific islands fill in the rest. Large deserts and high mountains inside the band are gaps unless they are irrigated or warm enough. Pockets of bananas also grow in warm subtropical places like the Canary Islands, Southern California and northeastern Australia.2Acta Horticulturae. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World All told, the world harvests about 145 million tonnes of bananas and plantains a year.3Horticultural Reviews: Volume 43. The Future of Global Banana Production
The top growers are not the famous exporters. Since 2016 the three biggest growers have been India, China and Indonesia.4DevelopmentAid. Top 10 biggest banana-producing countries in the world All three have huge populations, so a giant harvest can still mean modest bananas per person.
In Africa, East Africa is the biggest banana region, and Uganda produces about 10.5 million tonnes a year.5CGIAR / Bioversity International / IITA. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World Some counts rank Uganda second only to India in world production.6CGIAR / Bioversity International / IITA. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World Rankings differ between lists because some lump plantains in with sweet bananas and others separate them, so a country’s place can jump depending on whether cooking bananas are counted.
Much of the East African crop comes from small household plots, often banana stands tucked beside homes and other food crops. Plants are kept going for years, with new shoots replacing old stems, so the plot looks like a permanent grove rather than a field replanted each season. The bananas are usually eaten by the family or sold at nearby markets, which is why a big harvest never shows up in international shops.
Why Your Bananas Come From Latin America
Exported bananas make up less than 15% of the world’s yearly harvest.7Horticultural Reviews: Volume 43. The Future of Global Banana Production Most of those exports come from Latin America.8DevelopmentAid. Top 10 biggest banana-producing countries in the world Ecuador, Costa Rica and the Philippines are among the main suppliers shipping to North America and Europe.9Erasmus University Rotterdam. Research on banana cold chain transportation network and route optimization based on transportation time and cargo loss constraints Check the sticker on your banana and you will often find Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala or the Philippines.
Exports are almost all one kind of banana. Cavendish, the familiar yellow supermarket banana, makes up about 57% of world production.10ProMusa. Banana-producing countries Other sweet bananas are about 13%, plantains, a starchy cooking banana, about 15%, and other cooking bananas another 15%.11ProMusa. Banana-producing countries Exporters sell Cavendish grown on large plantations with heavy use of fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation.12PubMed. Impact of diseases on export and smallholder production of banana Small farmers grow many different kinds, mostly for local markets, with few inputs.13PubMed. Impact of diseases on export and smallholder production of banana
That also explains why India’s bananas rarely reach Western shops. Huge home demand absorbs the crop, and many Indian and African bananas are local types not suited to long cold shipping. Latin America also has the advantage of being close to US and European markets.
Refrigerated shipping makes the long trip possible. Bananas are picked green, packed and loaded into refrigerated containers in the growing country.14Erasmus University Rotterdam. Research on banana cold chain transportation network and route optimization based on transportation time and cargo loss constraints They cross the ocean cool enough to stay fresh, which keeps shops stocked all year.15Erasmus University Rotterdam. Research on banana cold chain transportation network and route optimization based on transportation time and cargo loss constraints In the destination country they move to ripening rooms, where the fruit is warmed and ripening is triggered in a controlled way so shops get yellow fruit on schedule. That is why a shop banana can be perfectly yellow without ever ripening on a plant, and why it ripens at home within days once it leaves cold storage.
The Climate Bananas Need
Temperature and water draw the main borders. Bananas fruit year round best where water is plentiful and daily temperatures stay between 20 and 30°C.16Acta Horticulturae. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World Those zones grow the fruit for the global market.17Acta Horticulturae. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World In subtropical areas, cooler temperatures and short winter days slow plants down, and that fruit mostly stays in local markets.18Acta Horticulturae. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World Below the comfortable range, a bunch takes much longer to develop and ripen.
Water is the other half. A plant can need 1,800 to 2,500 mm of water a year, but roots rot if waterlogged for long.19Orchard of Flavours. Growing Bananas in the Mediterranean: A Tested Guide Big leaves lose a lot of water, so dry spells quickly show up as slowed growth, yet soggy ground is as harmful as drought. The best banana land combines plenty of rain or irrigation with soil that drains freely.
Frost and dry air are the real limits. Frost kills the leaves and can kill the whole top of the plant, and dry air limits how much the plant can take in even when the soil is wet. Hot, humid lowlands near the equator suit bananas best. This is partly because the banana is not a tree but a giant herb, with a soft stem made of tightly packed leaves, not wood. That soft stem is why it needs steady moisture and dies back in cold. Each stem fruits once, then new shoots take over.
Soil matters too. Bananas like deep, rich, well-drained loamy soil around 0.5 to 1 meter deep.20National Horticulture Board. Banana Soil and Climate Most of the roots that do the work sit in the top 40 cm or so.21Experimental Agriculture. THE WATER RELATIONS AND IRRIGATION REQUIREMENTS OF BANANA (MUSA SPP.) A slightly acidic to neutral soil is preferred, around pH 5.5 to 7.0, though some growers aim for 6.5 to 7.5.22Production Technology of Fruit Crops. Optimal Soil Conditions for Banana Cultivation
Mountains, Deserts and Cooking Banana Country
East African highland bananas grow best between 1,400 and 2,000 meters.23ProMusa. East African highland banana subgroup Cooler highland days suit varieties adapted there over centuries, and volcanic highland soils are often deep and fertile. Go too high and it gets too cold, so the band is narrow. Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and eastern DR Congo eat these bananas as a staple, in places two to three times a day.24CGIAR / Bioversity International / IITA. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World Bananas and plantains supply more than a quarter of the carbohydrates for over 70 million people in Africa.25CGIAR / Bioversity International / IITA. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World In Uganda daily eating can exceed 1.6 kg per person, the highest in the world.26CGIAR / Bioversity International / IITA. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World Cooking bananas are also staples in the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific.27Worldmapper. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World
A plantain differs from a dessert banana by being starchier and usually cooked, fried or boiled, either green or ripe, much like a vegetable. Highland bananas in East Africa are picked green, peeled, then steamed and mashed into a main dish. In parts of East Africa a meal built around that dish plays the role bread, rice or potatoes play elsewhere.
Dry regions grow bananas with irrigation. There, missing water slows the crop, and in subtropical summers fields may need watering every 2 to 3 days.28Experimental Agriculture. THE WATER RELATIONS AND IRRIGATION REQUIREMENTS OF BANANA (MUSA SPP.) Alternating which side of the plant gets water can save water while keeping yields in semi-arid farming.29Agronomy. Irrigation of ‘Prata-Anã’ Banana with Partial Root-Zone Drying in a Semi-Arid Environment Bananas with B-genome ancestry may cope a little better with drought.30Experimental Agriculture. THE WATER RELATIONS AND IRRIGATION REQUIREMENTS OF BANANA (MUSA SPP.) The grower must pay for water and keep up a regular schedule, since plants show stress soon after a missed watering.
Bananas Outside the Tropics
Subtropical gardens can fruit, slowly. In Southern California a plant usually flowers about 1.5 years after planting.31Greg Alder’s Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening. Growing bananas in Southern California The bunch can then take up to six more months to ripen, because plants nearly stop growing in the cool winter.32Greg Alder’s Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening. Growing bananas in Southern California A plant that flowers in spring may ripen fruit before winter, while one that flowers in fall takes longer.33Greg Alder’s Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening. Growing bananas in Southern California
If you want to try one at home, choose a dwarf variety suited to cooler climates. Plant it in the warmest, most sheltered sunny spot, and keep the soil moist but never soggy. In frost areas, grow it in a large pot you can move indoors.
Expect some disappointment. Many plants make leaves for years without fruit. Cold snaps can blacken leaves, though the base may regrow, and the fruit is often smaller than store bananas.
Greenhouses push the map north. Morocco, the Canary Islands, Turkey and Israel grow bananas under cover, and in Israel all new plantings go in greenhouses.34Acta Horticulturae. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World In 2008 about a third of the Canary Islands’ banana land was under cover.35Acta Horticulturae. A Map of Where Bananas Grow Around the World In one reported case, dwarf Cavendish plants fruited in a heated dome in Sweden, at 60° north.36Growing Spaces Greenhouses. Peeling Back the Secrets of Growing Bananas The trade-off is cost, since structures and sometimes heating must be paid for, which is why the Swedish dome is a curiosity rather than an industry.
Where Bananas First Came From
Cultivated bananas come from crosses between wild banana species and subspecies native to Southeast Asian islands and mainland.37PubMed Central. Genome ancestry mosaics reveal multiple and cryptic contributors to cultivated banana Their genes trace mainly to wild Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, plus a New Guinea species.38PubMed Central. Origins and Domestication of Cultivated Banana Inferred from Chloroplast and Nuclear Genes The crop seems to have begun in New Guinea and then diversified across Southeast Asia.39PubMed. Interspecific introgression patterns reveal the origins of worldwide cultivated bananas in New Guinea
Wild bananas look very different from the ones in shops, because they are full of hard seeds. Cultivated bananas are seedless, so people plant shoots instead. Growers take the shoots that sprout from the base of a plant, and each new plant is a clone of its parent. That means every Cavendish is essentially a copy of the same plant. Wild relatives still matter, since they carry traits breeders may need against disease and drought, yet most wild banana species are poorly protected in seed and gene banks.40Wiley Online Library. Conservation status assessment of banana crop wild relatives using species distribution modelling
Because the plants cannot spread by seed, the map of bananas is largely a record of human travel and trade. Bananas reached Africa long ago, carried by traders and travellers. They spread through the Americas quickly in the 1500s, with foreign varieties arriving after 1492.41Economic Botany. The Dispersal of Bananas (Musa spp.) to the Americas in the Sixteenth Century
How Disease and Climate Change Are Redrawing the Map
A strain of Panama disease known as TR4, a soil fungus that kills banana plants, has spread across continents and caused multi-million-dollar losses.42PubMed Central. The Advance of Fusarium Wilt Tropical Race 4 in Musaceae of Latin America and the Caribbean: Current Situation It reached Colombia in 2019 and Peru in 2021.43PubMed Central. The Advance of Fusarium Wilt Tropical Race 4 in Musaceae of Latin America and the Caribbean: Current Situation Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama and Venezuela are now at maximum risk, partly through travel and trade.44PubMed Central. The Advance of Fusarium Wilt Tropical Race 4 in Musaceae of Latin America and the Caribbean: Current Situation Warming has also made leaf-disease conditions more favourable in the Amazon basin, coastal Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.45PubMed Central. Climate change effects on Black Sigatoka disease of banana
One fungus threatens the whole supermarket banana because all Cavendish plants are genetically near-identical, so none resists it. An earlier strain wiped out the previous export banana, Gros Michel, last century. The soil fungus lives in soil for decades, so a farm that has had an outbreak cannot simply replant the same banana and expect it to survive. It moves wherever soil moves, on boots, tools, vehicles and planting material, so one contaminated load can seed a new farm.
Travellers can help. Clean soil off your shoes after visiting banana farms abroad, don’t carry banana plants or soil across borders, and follow farm and border biosecurity rules.
Warming may shrink export zones. Rising temperatures are expected to sharply restrict the areas best suited to export bananas.46PubMed Central. Socio-economic factors constrain climate change adaptation in a tropical export crop Recent global yield gains could shrink or vanish by 2050, driven by falling yields in top growing and exporting countries.47PubMed Central. Climate change impacts on banana yields around the world Small farms growing many varieties may be less exposed than single-variety plantations.