Low price, high labour cost frustrate jute growers

Jute growers in different upazilas of the district are becoming frustrated due to fall in jute price and high labour cost this season.

As a result, good yield of jute fails to bring smile to the farmers as the present market prices are too low, compared to the production cost.

Local jute growers said many farmers are not even cutting and rotting their jute plants due to increased labour cost.

Though jute is called the golden fibre in Bangladesh, the golden past of the fibre is almost lost.

Usually cutting and rotting of jute is mainly done in the Bangla months of Ashar-Sraban as the plants need to be kept in water for about 10 to 15 days for processing.

According to Tangail Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), they had a target to bring 18,050 hectares of land in 12 upazilas of the district under jute cultivation this year, farmers cultivated jute on 19,020 hectares.

During a recent visit to different rural areas, this correspondent saw farmers were busy in either cutting and rotting the jute plants or separating the fibre from the plants.

While talking, a number of jute growers said this year production costs of each maund of jute is between Tk 3,000 to Tk 3,500, while per maund of jute is being sold for Tk 2,000.

Farmer Shahidul Alam of Punglipara village under Bhuanpur upazila said, "I have cultivated jute on five bighas of land this year. Although the yield was much higher than the last year, I could not even recover the cost of production due to increased labour charge."

Another grower Abdul Latif of Chandipur village said Jute plants are getting dried in the field as farmers in some areas could not rot jute due to increased wages of labourers. 

Currently they have to pay between Tk 700 to Tk 800 to hire a day labourer, he said.

The jute of many lands has started dying in the field due to low prices. "As per current market prices, we cannot lift the production costs," he said.

Bhuanpur Upazila Agriculture Officer Arifur Rahman said sales, prices and demand of any product are under purview of Directorate of Agriculture Marketing.   "There is nothing we can do in this regard," he added.