Kans grass harvest, gift of season

Few can deny the poetic beauty of kans grass, locally called kashful. When the monsoon recedes and grass colonises newly exposed riverbanks, as its familiar fluffy, white flower-stalks sway to any breeze, it's a scene that can only calm the mind. But by late November the grass has dried and turned pale. In this season on the Padma river chars in Rajshahi, kans grass no longer signifies beauty alone. It means money.

Kans grass straw is favoured by betel leaf growers for use in constructing their “barouj” shadehouses, common to lowland betel leaf cultivation. Late autumn is harvest season.

“It's a one-month business,” says Mohammad Milton one early morning at the Naboganga river ghat. “The harvest begins in October with prices remaining profitable until late November.” He supervises four labourers as they anchor a boat loaded with straw bundles.

“Labourers harvest the kans grass on the chars and bring it by ox cart to the riverbank to be transported by boat to the city,” he adds. As he speaks the kans grass bundles are being brought ashore, across a wooden plank from boat to ghat, carried on labourer's heads.

“We work from dawn to dusk,” says Md Helal, one young labourer, “The pay is good. Cutting kans grass earns us a better income than any labouring job on a farm.” His efforts will reward him with around Tk 750 for the day, with every 100 bundles harvested earning a labourer Tk 500. “On average I can harvest 150 bundles per day,” he explains.

Saifur Rahman leases the land on which the kans grass grows in order to organise its harvest. “The straw is selling at higher prices this year,” he says. “At this time last year 100 bundles sold for between Tk 650 to Tk 1000, but this year the rate is not less than Tk 1000.”

Trader Masud Rana has arrived at the ghat from Bagmara to buy the straw. He has already visited straw markets in Shyampur, Charghat and Bagha in Rajshahi. He will even travel as far as Kushtia or Sirajganj, he says, in search of quality straw.

“It's easy to sell it in betel leaf producing areas like Bagmara, Mohanpur and Durgapur upazilas in the district,” Masud says. “Thin straw is favoured over thicker stems.” Masud notes that he can sell quality straw to betel leaf growers for up to Tk 1500 per 100 bundles.

Along the Padman riverbank kans grass straw will be unloaded from dawn to dusk. Huge straw stockpiles dot the landscape, waiting to be transported by truck or three-wheeler to betel leaf producing areas. Up to twenty truckloads of straw are sold in the district daily, making the distinctive kans grass straw an inescapable sight to the city's south at this time of year, integral to this very season.