Although it is the rainy season, farmers in Jhenaidah have been facing severe water crisis when attempting to process green jute, as most of the water bodies have little to no water due to the lack of rainfall.
Farmers said they had been moving around in search of adequate amounts of water, which is needed to process the jute.
Alam, a farmer from Habibpur village in Sailkupa upazila of Jhenaidah, said they usually do the jute extraction in the Kumar River, but this year there was not enough water even during the monsoon.
He said the water crisis might adversely impact jute production this year.
Rabiul Islam, a farmer from Ganna village of Sadar upazila, said the water in local water bodies, including ditches, canals and ponds, have dried up for the lack of adequate rainfall.
He said they might be denied fair price for the golden fibre because of the low quality of the jute fibre this season. This will cause massive losses for the farmers.
Bijoy Krishna Halder, upazila agriculture officer of Sailkupa upazila, said usually 2,500mm rainfall is required between June and August every year for the water bodies, especially the local rivers, to have adequate water for processing jute. But the rainfall has been minimal this monsoon.
According to the Met Office, as of July 31 this year, a total of 437mm rainfall was recorded in the district.
The monthly recorded rainfall this season is 102mm in May, 142mm in June and 193mm in July. The figures were 201mm, 125mm, 111mm and 223mm in May, June, July and August respectively last year.
According to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), farmers had used a total of 19,785 hectares of land for jute cultivation this year although the government had set a target to use 20,247 hectares of land. The hectare-wise yield was targeted to be 11 bales of jute.
DAE Deputy Director Hazrat Ali said farmers had not also followed the government method for precessing jute fibre from the stick which would require less water than the traditional method would.
The government prescribed extracting the raw jute fibre with the help of a machine, and then the fibre is wrapped in polythene bags and sunk in water to rot.
