Banana and Sugarcane are commercial crops and lately has been backed by some groups and government under various missions. The Government is encouraging banana cultivation through sensitization, training, supply of quality planting material and other inputs. Besides, Govt. has introduced CHAMAN (Co-ordinated Horticulture Assessment and Management Using geoiNformatics) Scheme for 7 horticultural crops (Potato, Onion, Chilli, Tomato, Mango, Banana and Citrus) in 12 major states in 180 districts to carry out research on horticultural crop condition studies, diseases assessment and precision farming.
Since climate, soil type and water availability are the major factors in determining the growth of a particular crop/ vegetation on any land, it becomes imperative to understand the necessities of the crop. In this direction the Government has identified the States which are environmentally more suitable for cultivation of bananas and sugarcane other than the current major producing states.
The Minister of State informed that Banana & Sugarcane are being cultivated in Tropical and subtropical areas of the country due to suitable agro-climatic conditions and availability of adequate irrigation facility.
The Government has recognized the states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand etc. as non-traditional states for banana cultivation. States where banana was grown as a back-yard crop have also taken up commercial cultivation especially North Eastern states like Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Sugarcane is being cultivated mainly in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Haryana. However there is very little scope to extend the sugarcane area in other states of the country.
