A Market Analysis of the Somali Banana Sector and Its Potential for Export Revival: Experiences of Support to Agricultural Marketing Services and Access to Markets (SAMSAM) Project

Somalia's main agricultural areas are located along its Shabelle and Juba rivers, providing year round quality irrigation water from the Ethiopian highlands to the fertile riverine soils. Here, the Somali banana industry flourished as the largest exporter in East Africa with 12,000 ha under cultivation and employing 120,000 people. However, during the 1991 civil strife banana production ceased. From 1993 to 1997, the sector was partly revived with exports to Europe and the Middle East. Due to devastating El-Nino floods and loss of the preferential access to the European markets, exports ceased late 1997, although interest in Somali bananas from Middle East markets remained. Currently, 1,500 ha are cultivated, producing 40,000 t annually. This is sufficient for year-round supply to the local market but does not meet the production and profit potential related to exports, hence the latter's revival remains high on the agenda. Over the last five years, the European Community supported rehabilitation of the productive infrastructure in the said agricultural areas, but this did not lead to banana export revival. To shine more light on the opportunities and constraints of the Somali banana sector, the Euopean Committee for Agriculture and Training (CEFA) implemented the Support to Agricultural Marketing Services and Access to Markets (SAMSAM) project, which is designed to map and quantify the past and present banana sector, whilst conducting business to business and consumer research in the Middle East. The project also applied the value chain approach, analyzing chain actors and stakeholders including potential chain leaders. Based on feasibility studies, the project objective is to formulate a chain strategy and organization. This paper describes Somalia's current and potential banana chain, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and treaths (SWOT) analysis and cooperation scenarios between the banana sector and trade partners abroad.