People Arriving in Uganda for the first time will be struck by the sheer volume of Bananas that dot the side of the road on bicycles, piled high in trucks on their way to market, eventually creating the mountains that adorn them. The banana, Musa accuminata and musa balbisiana, is perhaps one of the most important crops grown in Uganda .The Grate Lakes region has become the second centre worldwide for the world's largest herb second to India - never mind the fact that India 's population is approximately fifty times that of Uganda! Uganda alone produces more than 11 million tones per year, the majority of it locally consumed. Though hard to measure, it is estimated that the average Ugandans consumes more than 400kilos of Bananas each year!
There are many theories that try to explain the origin of the Banana. What is Known is that musa accuminata originated in Malaysia and musa balbisiana came from India .At some point, perhaps seven well before Mohammed's followers took refuge in Abyssinia the present Ethiopia during the sixth century, these two species of banana mixed and created a wide diversity of different species. The majority consensus is that the banana was brought to East Africa via the Swahili culture's trade routes from the orient to the East African coast. This also partially fits with the Baganda's belief that their ancestral father, Kinto brought the banana from foreign lands trekking towards the Great Lake from the Northeast. Historians clearly acknowledge that the rise of the Baganda civilization, which endured centuries of propensity was largely due to the pivotal role the banana played in political, social, cultural, spiritual, medicinal and economic element of Baganda. Since then, the banana has become a cultural core of many different people throughout Uganda particularly the southwest.
Source : articlesbase
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