Though mills are ready to stock raw jute for production for the 2022-23 season, the retting process of the plants is being held back due to a lack of rainfall in the southern districts of the state, accounting for the lion’s share of total jute cultivation.
The scarcity of rain in the jute-producing districts in the southern part of West Bengal has slowed down the supply of golden fibre to mills amid bumper crop estimates, an official said on Sunday.
Though mills are ready to stock raw jute for production for the 2022-23 season, the retting process of the plants is being held back due to a lack of rainfall in the southern districts of the state, accounting for the lion’s share of total jute cultivation.
Retting is a microbial process by which the fibre from the woody core (stick) is loosened. After harvesting and defoliation, bundles of jute stems are placed in retting tanks and weighed down under water for 8-10 days to complete the process.
“Supply of raw jute to the market has not yet begun steadily. It is likely to be delayed till at least the third and fourth week of July due to insufficient rainfall in South Bengal which is delaying retting,” Jute Balers’ Association Secretary A K Palit told PTI.
However, the northern part of West Bengal has received good rainfall and raw jute is expected to arrive from there soon, he said.
“The shortfall in South Bengal has led to increase in raw jute price by around Rs 200-300 per quintal to around Rs 6500, after slipping to a low of Rs 6150 recently on the expectation of bumper crop,” he said.
According to the Met department, Murshidabad has a rain shortfall of 67 per cent, Nadia 61 per cent, North 24 Parganas 52 per cent and Hooghly 33 per cent between June 1 and July 10.
These are the key jute growing districts in the southern part of the state.
However, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts in northern West Bengal received excess rainfall of 45 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.
An expert committee constituted with representatives of the government, mills and other stakeholders has projected raw jute supply for 2022-23 (beginning July 1) to be 18 per cent higher than that in 2021-22 to 95 lakh bales.
“The quality of fibre will hamper if sufficient rainfall does not take place in the next 7-15 days,” a farmer in Murshidabad district said.
However, both mills and balers expect that jute supply for the current season will be better than that of last year which witnessed an unprecedented jump in the raw material price for the mills disrupting production of jute bags meant for food grain packaging.
The consumption of the mills is estimated at 70 lakh bales in the current season.
Jute industry in Bengal involves over 30 lakh jute farmers and 2.5 lakh mills workers, according to estimates by trade unions.
Source:indianexpress.com