Economic and multivariate analysis of banana production (Musa sp.) Cultivated in the semi-arid region of northeast Brazil

The objective of this work was to evaluate the economic viability and develop a multivariate analysis for banana crop data in the semi-arid region of Brazilian Northeastern. The study adopted a methodology widely disseminated in scientific research and income evaluations for the economic analysis. Through the economic indexes, we could evaluate the efficiency of the administrator and his workforce. Hierarchical clustering and Principal component analysis were used as multivariate analysis. The result of the economic analysis revealed that, on average, the total gross revenue from conventional management exceeded by 2.24 times the total gross income from agroecological management. However, the production costs of the conventional management exceeded by 2.15 times agroecological management. The multivariate analysis revealed that the variables are divided into three distinct groups formed between the equilibrium price and the profitability index, which do not correlate with each other or with the others, and by the subgroup formed by the return rate index, total operating profit and gross income, which are correlated with each other and not correlated with the others. We conclude that the multivariate analysis confirmed that the methodology used in the composition of all the economic indexes studied was correct.