Make jute cultivation profitable

Photo: Quddus Alam / driknews

The news item entitled “Last 2 years' losses still haunt jute growers,” published in this daily recently, raised concern over the future of jute cultivation. The report says that jute growers are worried about its market prices, especially against the backdrop of huge losses in last two seasons. By this time, this season's jute harvesting has already started and it is expected that the farmers will get bumper production. In addition, farmers are not facing any trouble this season to rot jute though they faced problem during the last two seasons due to shortage of water.
However, jute cultivation is expanding gradually. For instance, in 2009, the area of jute cultivation in Dinajpur and Joypurhat districts were only 4,578 and 2,095 hectares respectively. This year 10,467 hectares of land was brought under jute cultivation in Dinajpur and 3,450 hectares in Joypurhat. But unfortunately, the rise of jute cultivation area and its better production rather pose a challenge as the country's jute market is shrinking.
It may be mentioned that jute price was around Tk 600 to 800 per maund in 2010 and 2011 while the production cost was around Tk 1,000 per maund.
So if the farmers incur loss this season too, why will they continue growing jute the next seasons?
The government should explore markets of jute at home and abroad with vigorous marketing policy by appointing right marketing professionals. We hope the government would do the needful immediately for the sake of making jute cultivation profitable.