Seed, loan crises dog jute industry
CARE Bangladesh workshop told
A shortage of seeds, difficulties in availing loans and unavailability of quality raw materials are the main barriers to the jute industry's development, a group of farmers, traders and experts told a workshop yesterday.
They recommended training farmers on collecting seeds from harvests, ensuring availability of flexible loans, maintaining quality during the manufacture of products to attract foreign buyers and forming a regularity authority to monitor market prices.
Around 60 farmers, manufacturers of jute products and traders of Jessore, Satkhira, Rangpur and Kurigram participated at the workshop arranged by CARE Bangladesh in the capital's The Daily Star Centre to share experiences and outcomes of a project, “SWITCH Asia Jute Value Chain Project”.
Terming the seed shortage “a big crisis”, farmer Abdul Karim from Jessore believes the difficulty in getting loans resulted from a lack of trust.
The project's learning and advocacy specialist, Arshad Siddiqui, said approximately 66 percent of the demand for seeds were met with imports. The project's team leader Sekhar Bhattacharjee recommended manufacturers to be more professional and stay updated with market trends.
CARE Bangladesh introduced the European Union funded project in 2013 at the four districts to modernise jute cultivation, processing and marketing.