Benefits, costs, and consumer perceptions of the potential introduction of a fungus-resistant banana in Uganda and policy implications

Banana is a staple crop in Uganda. Ugandans have the highest per capita consumption of cooking bananas in the world (Clarke 2003). However, banana production in Uganda is limited by several productivity con¬straints, such as insects, diseases, soil depletion, and poor agronomic practices. To address these constraints, the country has invested significant resources in research and development (R&D) and other publicly funded programs, pur¬suing approaches over both the short and long term. Uganda formally initi¬ated its short-term approach in the early 1990s; it involves the collection of both local and foreign germplasms for the evaluation and selection of cultivars tolerant to the productivity constraints. The long-term approach, launched in 1995, includes breeding for resistance to the productivity constraints using conventional breeding methods and genetic engineering. Genetic engineer¬ing projects in Uganda target the most popular and infertile cultivars that can¬not be improved through conventional (cross) breeding.