Banana
The banana is a giant tropical herb — not a tree — that crops continuously in the hot, wet lowlands. Frost-free warmth and steady moisture are everything, confining it to a narrow equatorial belt from which Ecuador, the Philippines and Central America ship the world's fruit.
How it grows
Banana grows on a tree — the fruit ripens above the ground, up in the canopy.
What it’s worth to grow
Farm-gate value = the price farmers are paid per kilogram (FAOSTAT producer prices, median of 285 positive country-year observations spanning 2018–2024). It tracks how costly and labour-intensive a crop is to grow — almonds and vanilla command a premium; potatoes and cereals are cheap staples.
Where Earth's climate suits banana
Climatic suitability only — scored for every 0.5° of the planet from this crop's temperature and rainfall tolerances (FAO EcoCrop) on AgroClim 1991–2025 normals (AgERA5 temperature, CHIRPS/ERA5 rainfall). It shows where the rain-fed climate permits the crop, not where it is grown today; irrigation lets many crops thrive in drier country than the map suggests (California, Egypt, the Indus and Nile).
Who grows it — and where the climate merely allows it
The climate where it grows
— mean monthly temperature ▍ monthly rainfall — averaged over the actual growing areas (the suitable cells) inside each country, so it reflects where the crop is really grown, not the national average. AgroClim 1991–2025 normals. The 🌧 badge is the last 3 months’ rainfall as a percentage of the 1991–2020 CHIRPS normal (through 2025-12) — the current drought/deluge signal.
Climate envelope · FAO EcoCrop
Deep bar = optimal range; pale bar = absolute tolerance. Beyond the pale bar the crop fails. Latitude tolerance ±35° · soil pH 4–8.4.
Growing calendar & hazards
In the humid tropics there is no season: a plantation flowers and fruits year-round, each plant giving one bunch before a sucker replaces it.
- Cold. Growth stalls below ~14°C and a touch of frost kills the plant.
- Wind. Top-heavy and shallow-rooted, whole plantations are toppled by tropical storms.
- Panama disease. The soil fungus TR4 is spreading through the export Cavendish monoculture worldwide.