Despite these difficulties, however, the definitive establishment of the S.A.I.S. estates and their emulation by other companies at Genale and other centres on the Shebelle, and later on the Juba, provided Somalia with a new pattern of trade. The export of bananas, attempted first experimentally by the Duke of the Abruzzi, soon came to be the main object of production at Genale and provided the colony with a new export product which rapidly came to rival in importance the traditional mainstay, hides and skins.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 271