A Ugandan business turns banana fiber into sustainable handicrafts

MUKONO – A decapitated banana plant is sort of unnecessary, an inconvenience to the farmer who should then uproot it and lay its dismembered portions as mulch.

But can such stems one way or the other be returned to lifestyles? Yes, consistent with a Ugandan corporate that is purchasing banana stems in a business that turns fiber into horny handicrafts.

The concept is leading edge in addition to sustainable within the East African nation. Uganda has the easiest banana intake price on this planet and is Africa’s most sensible manufacturer of the crop. Especially in rural spaces, bananas can give a contribution as much as 25% of the day-to-day calorie consumption, consistent with figures from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In Uganda, consuming bananas is in some ways embedded in native customs and custom; for plenty of a meal is incomplete with out a serving of matooke, the native phrase for the starchy boiled mush made out of banana cultivars harvested and cooked uncooked.

To harvest the crop, the stem should be decapitated, and within the biggest plantations the scene can appear violent after a bumper harvest. The stems inevitably rot in open fields.

But native startup TEXFAD, which describes itself as a waste control team, is now profiting from this abundance of rotting stems to extract banana fiber that is grew to become into pieces that would come with hair extensions for girls.

John Baptist Okello, TEXFAD’s business supervisor, informed The Associated Press that the business made sense in a rustic the place farmers “are struggling a lot” with hundreds of thousands of heaps of banana-related waste. The corporate, which collaborates with seven other farmers’ teams in western Uganda, will pay $2.70 for a kilogram (greater than two kilos) of dried fiber.

David Bangirana, the chief of 1 such team within the western Ugandan district of Sheema, stated just a small a part of the internal stem of a decapitated plant is harvested for fiber. And the “residue is returned after machine work to the farmer for use as manure,” he said.

His group is working to build capacity to make finished products, he said.

TEXFAD also takes material from a third party, Tupande Holdings Ltd., whose trucks deliver banana stems from farmers in central Uganda. Tupande’s workers sort through the stems, looking for desirable ones. Machines then turn the fiber into tiny threads.

Aggrey Muganga, the team leader at Tupande Holdings Ltd., said his company deals with more than 60 farmers who continuously supply abundant raw material.

That number is only a small fraction of what’s available in a country where more than a million hectares (nearly 2.5 million acres) are planted with bananas. Banana production has been rising steadily over the years, growing from 6.5 metric tons in 2018 to 8.3 metric tons in 2019, according to figures from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.

“We extract fiber threads from the sheaths of the stem … So our contribution in the value chain is that we put extra income in the hands of the farmer. We turn this waste into something valuable that we sell to our partners who also make things,” Muganga said.

At a plant in a village just outside Kampala, the Ugandan capital, TEXFAD employs more than 30 people who use their hands to make unique and often attractive items from banana fiber. The rugs and lampshades they produce are especially attractive to customers, with the company now exporting some products to Europe.

Such items are possible because “banana fiber can be softened to the level of cotton,” Okello said.

Working with researchers, TEXFAD is now experimenting with possible fabric from banana fiber. While it is now possible to make paper towels and sanitary pads from banana fiber, the company doesn’t yet have the technology to make clothing, he said.

The company also is designing hair extension products it believes will help rid the market of synthetic products seen as harmful to the environment.

All products by TEXFAD are biodegradable, said Faith Kabahuma, of the company’s banana hair development program, describing hair extensions that have done well in tests and soon will be available on the market.

“The problem with synthetic fiber, they do so much clogging like everywhere you go; even if you go to dig in the gardens right now you will find synthetic fiber around,” she said.

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Rodney Muhumuza reported from Kampala.