 Banana Fibre Products Industry in Kanyakumari District:
Salient Aspects
Banana fibre is obtained from pseudostem after crop harvest.
The coarse fibre is widely used after stripping as strings for making garlands.
Banana fibre and its products industry is concentrated mainly in two states in India (Tamil Nadu & Bihar).
Every hectare of banana plantation has a potential to yield approx.340 kg fibre
Red banana and Nendran varieties give the best quality fibre
in one district of Tamil Nadu (Kanyakumari alone). There are 40 units of banana fibre products each supporting about 90 farm families.
The Value of business done by these units in that district is approx. US$ 0.2 million per annum.
Raw material : Availability based on production of banana, competition from paper industry
Production : manual, labour intensive, the industry comes under handicrafts, multiple varieties, low volume,
traditional technology, production based on orders received
Human resource : Skilled labour required, production at households of labourers
Investment : Less fixed capital and more of working capital
Marketing : Traders have the advantage, price based competition, asymmetric market information, payment problem by buyers,
substitution by plastic materials
SWOT Analysis
Strength :
- availability of raw material
- Skilled labour
Weakness :
- Traditional technology
- Inadequate marketing efforts by producers
- Declining demand for banana fibre products
- Mobility of labour to Cashew processing industries
- Inadequate role of government in market assistance
- Inadequate understanding of consumer preferences in domestic markets
- Export demand and markets not understood by producers
- Exploitation by traders
Opportunities :
- Demand for handicrafts
- Demand for aesthetic products
- Mechanization of production
- Demand for natural and biodegradable products in response to concern about environment and contamination
Threat :
- Growing demand for plastic products
- Use of raw material by paper mills
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