A worker unloads bananas from a truck at Gandhi Market in Tiruchi.
| Photo Credit: M. MOORTHY
With the geopolitical situation in West Asia remaining volatile, a section of banana growers in India has been hit by the abrupt closure of export markets and regular trade routes due to the Iran-U.S. war, leading to large consignments of the fruit being stranded in overseas ports.“India was a major exporter of Grand Naine bananas to Iran and Iraq, as also nendran to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries before the war. The transit time for shipping used to be just one week to 10 days. Now, due to political tensions and the closing of shipping at the Strait of Hormuz, the consignments are held up for 20 to 25 days, causing a lot of fruit damage,” R. Selvarajan, director, ICAR–National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB) told The Hindu.Mr. Selvarajan said the NRCB had been training exporters to delay the ripening period of harvested bananas in order to help preserve the fruit for shipping.“A banana exporter from Kerala recently underwent training from us to regulate the ripeness of the banana consignments from for up to 25 days in transit. Actually, we have protocols that allow harvested fruits to be unripe from 45-60 days when they are shipped to long distances, but these were not being followed by companies because the transit time to the traditional export markets was quite short before the war,” he added.Pre-cooling, a pre-treatment to cold storage that reduces the temperature of bananas from about 30-32 degrees Celsius at harvest to 13-15 degrees Celsius, should be done at the farm rather than in packing houses, he said. “We had already shared these methods with farmers and companies through Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), but they were not implemented widely,” he said.Mr. Selvarajan said NRCB would be teaming up with APEDA and private companies to export bananas to Russia via the Red Sea route within the next few weeks.The market for value-added banana products has been hit by the war. “At least 50-80 kg of value added banana products were being exported per week from Thottiyam to the Gulf countries. After March, the demand from Gulf countries has reduced drastically. We have been hit by crop disease, and the El Nino weather patterns, so banana growers are facing a tough time in our district,” said V.A. Kalyanasundaram from the marketing department of Tamil Nadu Banana Producer Company Ltd., an umbrella organisation of the Thottiyam Banana Producer Group.Exports of solar-dehydrated bananas and banana flour had been hit most due to the war, he said. Published - July 17, 2026 08:46 pm IST
