Sweeping Away Carbon Footprints with Jute Revival in Bangladesh

Sweeping Away Carbon Footprints with Jute Revival

Faizul Khan Tanim writes on the return of the golden fibre in Bangladesh and its immense significance

Jute used to be the country's largest foreign exchange earner till the 1970s and then slowly with its decline, we saw the largest jute mill in the world – Adamjee in Narayanganj – shut down in 2002.

Very recently, the discovery of jute genome sequencing has made us more optimistic about revival of the fibre. Bangladeshi scientists have successfully decoded the vital genome sequence of jute, of which this country is the world's largest exporter.

After this discovery, opportunities have been created to evolve different stress tolerant (salinity, drought, insects and pests) jute varieties.

According to Bangladesh jute research institute (BJRI) officials under the ministry of agriculture, jute was mostly used to produce packaging materials and there were hardly any other use.

And jute materials lost its potential due to its non-moisture proof characteristics to synthetic materials as packaging substitutes in both large and micro levels. Therefore, large jute mills started to incur huge losses and had to be shut down.

It was only in the late 90's that we understood that synthetic materials are not biodegradable and are clogging up the arteries and veins of our living. So, a fresh revival effort started and it is said that the jute production in Bangladesh was very high during the last two years.

Although jute is grown in almost all the districts of Bangladesh, greater Faridpur, Tangail, Jessore, Dhaka, Sirajganj, Bogra, Jamalpur, in the North for example Rangpur, then Mymensing, Kishoreganj are considered the better growing areas. BJRI sources said that according to a recent research, very good quality jute can be extracted from our coastal belts as well – an area called Khepupara (Pakhimara station) in Patuakhali has resulted in good quality jute production.

There are two significant factors to extract good jute – the trees has to be tall and has to have more fibres and less branching. Jute seed sowing starts from mid April and continues till mid May and the harvesting takes place in August. It is said that now we have such varieties of the crop which can be sown, harvested and extracted within 90 days.

Md Shafiqul Hasan, editor/publication officer of BJRI, mentioned few of the prime reasons for our jute mills becoming losing concerns – a) The 40 to 50 years old machines in our mills are becoming outdated and proper balancing, modernization, rehabilitation, and expansion (BMRE) of the machines were not carried out timely. b) Synthetic materials became substitute of jute worldwide which is why our export diminished since we depend on exporting jute more than our own consumption which is very less. c) There was heavy corruption in this sector with the middlemen most responsible for farmers not getting their fair prices. d) The jute traders were greedy to make money faster.

Senior scientific officer Dr S M Mahbub Ali of BJRI said, “There are few indicators of jute revival - the production of jute diminished from 70,00,000 bales (1 bale=180 kgs or 5 mounds) in the 70's to 40,00,000 bales after our liberation. But in the last two years, the production again shot up to 84,00,000 bales and an estimated 75,00,000 bales production is expected this year. Last year, one mound of jute was sold at Taka 2,500 although this year it is a bit less, Taka 1800 per mound according to grade and quality and since we have an excess of jute in our storages from the previous years. Raw jute and jute goods export crossed billion dollar mark for the first time in the history of Bangladesh. According to Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Bangladesh exported jute worth US$1.1 billion in 2010-2011 fiscal.”

“Another reason for jute to diminish from the early 70's is that our water sources have severely diminished over the past 40 to 50 years with rivers drying and drying since the process of jute extraction or jute retting has to be done in water bodies. Retting is a process by which fibres get loosened and separated from the woody stalk due to removal of pectinals and other mucilaginous substances. This is usually affected by the combined action of water and micro-organisms.

The tied bundle of jute stalks are stepped in to water and weighed down 15-30 cm below the water surface. This extraction method once done properly, gives the best fibres. Therefore, we need our rivers and water bodies back immediately.”

According to the international body of jute, international jute study group (IJSG), previously known as international jute organization (IJO), there are two main types of jute usage – the traditional use of hessian packaging of sacks and bags and the diversified use, which is quite recent.

In the diverse usage category, jute can be used to produce yearn and to be mixed with cotton to call Juton to be used in the textile industry. It can be used to produce carpet backing cloth (CBC). Jute plant can be used to produce high quality pulp and paper (China, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam already became successful). Jute Novotex blankets and quilts can be produced cheaply instead of importing woollen blankets from abroad. Jute geo-textile is a potentially important product of jute which is used to construct roads, to manage hill slopes (jute geo-textile is used in test basis on the Chimbuk-Thanchi road in Bandarban of the CHT) and to build dams to stop soil and river erosion (North America has become a primary area where jute products are used to stop river erosion).

Jute products are 100 per cent biodegradable which has great environmental value. Bangladesh can take the advantage of increasing worldwide awareness about the environment by promoting jute products as eco- products. Jute shopping bags can easily be promoted in the departmental stores of Western countries since after cost of production, each bag can be sold at around 10 cents.

Senior project assistant Muhammad Abul Hossain of IJSG said, “Our neighbouring country India is protecting their jute sector by two ways – Mandatory packaging law, by which, all sorts of government packaging are done by jute or jute products and the implementation of minimum support price (MSP) for the jute farmers by government subsidies.”

Stakeholders say that although the mandatory packaging law was announced last year in Bangladesh but it is yet to see any light.

IJSG and other industry sources stated that as the worldwide demand of jute decreased compared to our projected growth with the advent of the Middle-East crisis since we used the Tripoli port, which was closed down, to send raw jute and jute goods.

Now, Bangladesh jute mills corporation (BJMC) has 1400,000 bales of jute still in its stock and it is expected that the stocks may increase to 20,00,000 bales at the end of this year unless we go for innovative use of jute or export.

Hossain also said, “There has been a fantastic revival of jute from 2007 and if we are to continue this success, we must – a) Address our problems with promotion of jute as a biodegradable product. BJRI still produces and sells perishable jute bags at Taka 7 to 10 per piece. We should promote the use of low-cost jute bags and aware people of the environment-friendly factors. b) Increase industry skills of the jute sector. c) Massive machinery replacement, improvement and maintenance is needed. d) Increase skills at the small and medium enterprise (SME) levels. e) Encourage more entrepreneurship in the jute sector with more training to produce creative products according to the needs of the foreign buyers. For example TATA in India is using jute composite – a material to produce the interior decoration parts of vehicles. f) Ask big organizations like Walmart and others to sell environment-friendly bags and contribute to reducing individual carbon footprints. This is a huge opportunity. Our government has already taken initiative to reopen North Bengal Paper Mill (with the assistance of China) and also three other mills to produce paper from green jute and fibre".

One of the most important factors for quality jute is the attainment of good jute seed. BJRI has recently evolved high yielding varieties of jute – BJRI Tossa pat-5, Deshi pat-7, one kenaf named BJRI Kenaf HC-3, vegetable mesta VM-1. Moreover, 14 more varieties including O-9897, O-72 were evolved by BJRI and are now commercially cultivated.

BJRI says, the scientists of the agricultural research wing have so far developed 38 improved jute varieties of which 14 are commercially cultivated throughout the country. These include four olitorious, seven capsularis, 2 kenaf and one mesta.

The jute seeds produced in the country are more strong and suited for our country's climate than the ones from India.

Stakeholders of the jute sector have alleged that there is lack of quality jute seed due to the negligence of Bangladesh agricultural development corporation (BADC). They mentioned that Indian seeds like Bankim and GRO-24 come to Bangladesh in both legal and illegal ways. The ones coming through the legal channel yields high while the seeds illegally entering, results in diseases and other problems.

*This article was first published in The Independent's Weekend Magazine Friday October 14 2011 -http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=44&date=2011-10-14