Banana/Matooke in Uganda is widely grown for multi-purposes, most notably for food, animails feeds, fruits-banana, roasting and at a very low scale for juice. For those looking to explore the full potential of Banana/Matooke, we have some information that will be useful to you.

BACKGROUND

Bananas/Matooke in Uganda is widely grown for multi-purposes, most notably:

For food-the cooking type; this is widely grown especially in central region as food. It is best prepared when streamed and wrapped in banana leaves. This type forms a lucrative business for many Ugandans.  Visit any market you will understand what I am talking about.

Ripes or Amenvu; Matooke if ripened before being cooked, can be consumed and sold as “amenvu”. The most common ones are “sukaali ndiizi” and “bogoya”. These form a delicacy in many parts of Uganda for example in Bugishu, the ripe bananas "Elitofu" are widely eaten even as a meal accompanied with source! The foreigners and untraditional banana countries such as the neighboring East African countries all enjoy Ripes most of the time especially for breakfast.

Roasting type as Gonja; yet another lucrative business in many centers on the highways roadside markets e.g. Mbizzinnya, Namawojjolo, Mabira (Najjembe) Lukaya, Kinoni and many other points. Gonja provides easy and yet enjoyable meal for many otherwise would be hungry travelers. Imagine Gonja can be imported all the way from DR Congo, Bundibujjo and Kasese to several of the said stopover traveler- points. Many farmers in Uganda grow Gonja as a cash crop.

Juice/Wine type of bananas known as Embidde, kayinja, kisubi, kivuuvu etc. These form like 25% of the banana varieties in Uganda. The main products out of this category are:

·         The sweet delicious banana juice/Omubisi is wonderful and nutritive beverage that requires no sweeteners unlike most beverages. It is self-sweetening. Because of this characteristic it contains plenty of natural yeast that is why it can easily ferment into alcohol yet another money minter for small-scale production. The concept lies in extracting this sweet delicious banana juice/Omubisi, process it and put it on market as an organic juice before it gets to ferment.

·         The juice/ wine type of banana trees provide a lucrative business of

1.     Banana leaves/endagala for food steaming and making the famous luwombo dish.

2.     Banana fibers/ebyaayi for crafts, which attract foreign currencies, used for roofing, making attractive ceiling and making ropes. The banana fibers make good paper.

3.     Essanja (dried leaves) to make shift huts (ensiisira) shelter especially during last funeral rituals when too many people gather that may not be accommodated in the available houses.

4.     Mulching the banana gardens. This caters for moist soil and sees the banana plants through the drought season.

5.     Occupation to housewives and employment to many casual laborers in the given community.

6.     Provides domestic livestock feed as the cattle, goats and sheep thrive on banana peels, and the poultry enjoy peaking on the banana leaves.

MAKING THE BANANA JUICE AS PER OUR CONCEPT

§  Requirements/Inputs

1. Ripes of the juice banana, variety
2. Commercial blender
3. Safe drinking water
4. Skilled person to extract the juice.
5. A storage facility/refrigerators
6. Chemical preventives (benzoates &citric acid)
7. Suitable packaging materials (labels & bottles)

§  Method

1. Collect the mature banana fruit bunches (Fruit collection & sorting)
2. Cover them in a well-lined pit or convenient place with the banana leaves for some 3-5 days, depending on the banana maturity, to make them ripe faster.
3. Peel them in a clean container (commercial blender)
4. Blend well so as to extract the juice (pulping)
5. Extract the juice through filtering the product attained after blending, the filtrate is the omubisi and the residues are useful livestock; dairy cows, pigs, goat etc.
6. Use preservatives if not for immediate consumption as it contains a lot of natural yeast, which  takes further the fermentation process, so must be stopped immediately after extraction of juice.
7. Packing; this is imperative to work on rejuvenating the consumers’ attitude towards local beverages and to improve the cooperate image.

§  The significances of omubisi

1.  Environmental protection and offers nutrient recycling

2.  Income generating

3.  Natural sweetness so no need for additives or flavorings and can even be consumed by diabetics.

4.  Nutritive food/beverage and make livestock feed

5.  Medicinal as it treats many forms of allergies and sooths stomach ulcers

6.  Completely organic so no worry about overdose

7.  Biodegradable

8.  Locally available and produced so pocket friendly

9.  Omubisi as a beverage (soft drink) can ferment into alcohol

TRADITIONAL FEARS ASSOCIATED WITH CONSUMPTION OF OMUBISI

a)             Used to be extracted by idlers using their jigger-infested feet in the villages.

b)             The era of boiling drinking water; 'mineral water' is a modern phenomenon so in the past water was just fetched from the spring and the hygiene around the production area not quite observed.

c)             The container in which extraction of omubisi would be done used to be left outside and pests as stray dogs, wild foxes, snakes and bees would visit in odd hours so the consumer imagination of the production sight would inhibit the market.

d)             Because of its high sugar content, the unaware persons would fear to take it, thinking it causes sugar diseases as diabetes.

e)             Lack and /or proper packaging materials caused loss of the consumers’ confidence.

CORE COMMUNITY BENEFITS FROM OMUBISI

1.            The availability of direct market to sell their mabidde.

2.             The community acquiring production knowledge and skills

3.             Poverty alleviation, by the people getting the hope of daily cash flow through casual employment, buying value added products and networking.

4.             Adds to ‘prosperity for all’

CHALLENGES

a)             Proper packaging of project proposal to acquire the appropriate technical support and funding.

b)             The proper skills and knowledge of processing the Omubisi beverage to acceptable standard (Training of other Gabula Atudde Women grip members to acquire the appropriate production and packaging attitude, skills and knowledge).

c)             Working on the Community /consumer negative attitude towards the local beverages.

d)             Getting to the National Bureau of Standards.

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Article Prepared and posted by:
Gabula Atudde Women's Group