Jute farming faces setback in five northern districts

A farmer in Domar upazila, Nilphamari prepares land for jute cultivation. But jute cultivation faces setback in the district due to acute scarcity of quality jute seeds. PHOTO: STAR

Continuous drought has aggravated the situation in Nilphamari, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Kurigram and Lalmonirhat districts.

Because of the phenomenon, the farmers could not sow jute seeds on about 60 per cent of targeted lands although half of the harvesting season already passed.

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Last year's high price of jute encouraged the farmers to cultivate the cash crop on a vast tract of land this year, but they have become frustrated due to non-availabilty of quality jute seeds and drought.

In search of quality seeds, the farmers are now crowding the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) offices. They are also moving from door to door of authorised dealers of BADC. But they are returning home empty-handed.

Last year, farmers in the region got Tk 800-1000 per maund of jute, the highest amount in last 20 years.

The ongoing drought persisting for more than five months has dried up lands resulting in poor sprouting of saplings.

Usually farmers collect jute seeds from the following sources. They usually prefer to use their own harvested seeds, otherwise they collect seeds from BADC or authorised dealers or smuggled jute seeds found in markets. As quality jute seeds are very rare, the farmers opt for BADC seeds.

Source in the BADC regional office, Rangpur, said this year the demand for jute seeds in the five districts is 270 metric tonnes (MT) whereas 70,000 hectares of land have been brought under jute cultivation. But the availability of jute seeds is only 68 MT.

The assistant agriculture officer of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), Nilphamari, Provash Chandra Mohanto told this correspondent this year the demand for jute seeds is 109 MT. Of the seeds, 14 MT is of local variety and 95 MT is of Tosha variety.

The DAE brought 14.5 thousand hectares of land under jute cultivation which is higher than about 13.5 thousand hectares of last year's target.

BADC is the authority to supply jute seeds to the farmers. But the storekeeper of local BADC office, Abdul Malek said till March 28, he received only 1,422 kg of jute seeds (about 1.5 MT) which constitutes only 2 per cent of the total demand.

The BADC authorised seed dealers are selling government seeds in the open market. They are selling a pack of Tosha variety of seeds of 775 grams at in between Tk 230-240 instead of government fixed price of Tk 68. They are also selling the local variety of 1 kg of seeds at between Tk 100-120 instead of the official rate of Tk 75. At present the seeds in BADC storage have been exhausted. BADC sources said their local office sells jute seeds directly to farmers in the Sadar upazila only while in other five upazilas it is sold through the authorised dealers.

They said the local BADC office is not responsible to monitor the price of jute seeds as the dealers procure their quota of jute seeds directly from the regional office at Rangpur.

Making best use of the situation, Indian jute seeds have flooded the markets. At present, the cultivation season of local variety of jute is over. So, there is a great demand for Tosha variety of jute seeds.

Inferior quality of Indian Tosha jute seeds such as Debgiri, Krishi kalyan, Bangabir, Krishi Sebayan, Tasmahal, Bankim, Panpata, Trishul and Pansa are being sold at between Tk 240-250 per kg.

Whe contacted, the owner of Sonali Seed Store of Nilphamari Baro Bazaar, Akbar Ali told this correspondent they sell these varieties of Indian seeds.

"We do not know which seeds are good and which seeds are bad because these are imported through land ports legally."

Jamiar Rahman, a farmer at Ketkibari village under Domar upazila said he had sown Indian variety of Tosha seeds in his two bigahs of land but he became disappointed as 75 per cent of the seeds did not sprout. He blamed the inferior quality of Indian seeds for it.