DHAKA, Feb 22, 2018 (BSS) – The government will import 6,300 metric tons of high yielding variety (HYV) certified jute seed from India during the 2018-19 jute season.
The target was set at the 95th meeting of the National Seed Board (NSB) held recently at the Agriculture Ministry with its Senior Secretary Mainuddin Abdullah in the chair.
Under the plan, selected private companies will import some 5,100 tonnes of tossa variety jute seed and the remaining 1,200 tonnes mesta or kenaf variety jute seed from India as the land for jute cultivation in the country is increasing gradually due to a jute friendly policy adopted by the government.
Talking to BSS, Dr M Azhar Ali, Acting Director of Plant Protection Wing of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), said, “The country has a demand of around 8,484 tonnes of jute seed including the desi, tossa and kenaf variety of jute. We have a target to import 6,300 tonnes of jute seed from India during the upcoming season beginning in the last week of March and harvest will end in the first week of July.”
Last year, the target of jute seed import was around 5,000 tonnes, but the actual import was 4,598 tonnes, he said. The jute cultivation target for the upcoming season has been fixed on 8.05 lakh hectares of land, he added.
The ministry has formed a four-member committee headed by the Acting Director of the Plant Protection Wing of the DAE to ascertain the stock of unsold seed in the private sector.
The global demand for jute and allied products has seen a steady increase driven by a fresh comeback for biodegradable fiber as people now look for eco-friendly products instead of synthetics. Bangladesh produces around 30 percent of the world production of jute and exports around 40 percent of its produce as raw jute.
The revival of the jute sector on the onset of 2015 followed the Prime Minister’s directives for ensuring agro-products growth and processing to large scale exports.
Jute is second to cotton in world’s production of textile fibers. India, Bangladesh, China and Thailand are the leading producers of jute. It is also produced in southwest Asia and Brazil. India is the largest producer of jute goods in the world, while Bangladesh is the largest cultivator of raw jute.
The government plans to cultivate jute on 8.05 lakh hectares of land in 2018-19 while the country produced 10.14 lakh bales of jute by cultivating 7.89 lakh hectares of land in 2017-18.