Pakistan introduces two new high-yielding banana varieties

Pakinstan achieved a breakthrough in banana breeding as the country’s leading agricultural research institution developed two varieties of fruit for cultivation in Sindh.

"The new varieties - NIGAB-1 and NIGAB-2 - will increase banana production in the country, which will further help meet domestic needs as well as export targets," said Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) chairman Dr. Muhammad Azim Khan. He expressed his gratitude to the scientists who participated in the development of the NIGAB varieties.

The new banana varieties have been developed at the National Institute for Genomic and Advanced Biotechnology (NIGAB) at the National Center for Agricultural Research, where to date 300,000 healthy plants have been grown using tissue culture.

These high yielding varieties will have a longer shelf life, which is the main requirement for export, and are approved by the Sindh Seed Council for commercial cultivation: Sindh is the largest banana producer in the country.

At the same time, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), banana yields in Pakistan are lower compared to India and China.

Bananas are the most exported fresh fruits in the world with export volumes of $ 10 billion a year. They are an important source of income for thousands of rural households in developing countries.

According to FAO, global production of bananas and tropical fruits will grow by 1.8% per year from 2019 to 2028, after growing by 2.3% per year in the previous decade. Under the baseline scenario, production is expected to slightly exceed 255 million tonnes by 2028.