A Regenerative Food System
Regenerative agriculture is not a new concept, although its global adoption is a new phenomena. In Uganda & most of sub-Saharan Africa, it’s old wisdom where farmers understand the need for a better relationship with nature for the land to stay productive.
Regen Ag. refers to a set of practices and principles that increase biodiversity, enrich soil, improve watersheds and enhance ecosystem services.
At Green Banana Food we see a future food system that fosters a thriving biodiversity.
Biodiversity & Functional Food
Many functional plants and crops have been shown to provide us with benefits such as improved health and wellbeing, improved nutrition, and protection against disease. Functional food is only possible if we maintain diverse crop biodiversity, compared to industrial food that’s causing deforestation, soil degradation and mass chemical contamination in food.
At Gabanna we see a future food system that fosters a thriving biodiversity. We have 2 core processes;
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Revenue sharing for land & biodiversity stewardship
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Distributed Smart Food Processing
1. Revenue sharing for land & biodiversity stewardship
The cost of maintaining healthy soil and biodiversity is currently taken up by farmers, but this is a heavy burden so we have to consider an alternative economic incentive structure. We are applying a revenue-sharing model between us “the Manufacturer” and the participating steward farmers “raw material suppliers”. The practical application of innovative risk & reward sharing between nature-positive farmers and the supply chain (nature-positive raw material sourcing)
2. Functional
Biodiversity & Distributed
Processing
Our goal is to transition from a centralised food system into a localised / distributed system and with smart data analytics and intelligent processing we are able to work with a wide variety of plants, understand the different plant compounds and functional properties to develop and produce functional foods.
Through our Edible Discovery innovation strategy, we identify as many crops and crop compounds that are vital for human health and can create indulgent flavours and textures.
What is Matooke (Highland Banana)
Matooke is the regional name for the East African Highland banana (Musa acuminata Colla (AAA-EA) and an older subspecies of the wild banana species Musa acuminata. Matooke is the local name for a variety of this triploid banana cultivars originating from the African Great Lakes region and the fruit is mature & harvested green, peeled, and then cooked in pieces or mashed like potatoes.
Matooke is considered a “common property resource’ and is ecologically well adapted to the highland conditions often in an intercrop farming system for natural soil health. It is widely grown by a variety of producers, in terms of scale and specialisation.
The regenerative practices in most Matooke plantations create good soil nutrients, moisture, shed and mixed cropping, so these plantations have perfect symbiotic ecosystems creating a biodiverse landscape as plantations for miles across hills and valleys.
