The travels of a banana

In a CNN interview in November 2019, Peter Njonjo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twiga Foods in Kenya, revealed some startling facts about the journey of a banana. In Europe, the fruit travels 4,000 km from Latin America to a shelf in a supermarket and costs a dollar. A banana in Kenya travels about 300–400 km within the country and will cost the same dollar. His business partner, Grant Brooke, gave a succinct summary of the connection between technology and food:

In this quote from an online interview, what becomes apparent is the role of technology in enabling real-time connection, which has positive implications for the management of the food value chain. However, what is also implied in this example is the central role that infrastructure plays in the distribution of food. Thus, the connection between the urban infrastructure that underpins the flow of goods or services and the digital infrastructure that enables flows of information and data will be explored in detail in this chapter. Food serves both as a lens to do so and as an extension of the concerns surrounding climate change given the primacy of the issue of food insecurity as a consequence of global warming. The disjuncture in the cost of two bananas described by Brooke and Njonjo reveals many facets of the growing food crisis in African cities, recently worsened by COVID-19. According to Njonjo, Brooke and others, the problem is the food value chain and the economic relations associated with that.