Bangladesh: Could jute jump start the eco-revolution? | DW Documentary

Bangladesh: Could jute jump start the eco-revolution? | DW Documentary

I started cultivating jute at the age of 12 in those days J was an important crop here then jute cultivation became less important rice was the priority and the focus shifted from jute to Plastic that could be about to change AAS and aay aand cultivate a fiber that could make the world a better place a has believed in this possibility ever since his daughter told him that jute could be turned into a material that feels and behaves like plastic but is environmentally friendly I read a

Article on shali bags it is invented by on Bangladeshi scientist uh it is a biodegr biop Plastic a and his uncle AAS Farm the natural fiber according to a centuries old tradition could this painstaking process provide the fiber of the future Northern Bangladesh buur District 6:00 in the morning an early start to avoid the summer Heat yesterday temperatures reached 45° C AAS seed this jute in March now it’s

Harvest time at the end of the Bengali month of chitro we sew the seeds four months later in the month of ashar we Harvest we then plant other crops on the same soil such as Orin or potatoes we use dried J sticks for many purposes

They bring in the most money we use them as climbing AIDS in vegetable fields or for the walls of houses today however this is becoming obsolete as bricks are used instead of jute Bangladesh is a small country but its Farmers count among the world’s Lar largest jute

Producers aaz lives in the village of hisley he is one of the wealthier people in the village his annual income he says is the equivalent of €5,000 AAS has four Sons one is also a farmer another one is a driver one is living in Malaysia as a a migrant worker and the other is an engineer I am 75 years old when AAS was young the slogan use jute not plastic handmade in Bangladesh

Was popular in parts of Europe but AAS says he’s never heard of it in the 1980s the Jud bag from Bangladesh became a symbol of the environmental movement back then it was known as a scratchy resilient natural material used jute not plastic was a rallying cry now the fight against plastic is

More urgent than ever in the village of hisley scrap metal and plastic are collected for recycling people are paid in edible nuts could J eventually replace who are the people who cultivate the plant now what role does Jude play for them overall Jud cultivation has advantages we hardly earned anything

From Rice this year but we still grow rice for our own consumption and we feed the rice straw to the cattle The price Farmers receive for Jude fluctuates considerably some years proceeds from sales fail to cover production costs the government is trying to counteract this the market price is high right now farmers are interested again and we want to support them in the current season our department has provided them with seeds

And fertilizer free of charge this creates incentives the farmers have to invest less and can make a bigger profit my name is Tuli I’m working as an assistant officer at the department of agriculture extension the fiber feels thick and strong it will be a good yield this

Year the harvested Juke stocks are left to lie in the field for 3 days until all the leaves have fallen off what follows is the unpleasant part the green stocks must rot [Applause] the musty water attracts insects and bacteria that are good for the jute and help the fermentation of the

Plant but it’s bad for human skin and causes itching says AAS today it is bearable and say a Faz he’s used to it anyway other challenges are more daunting I like growing J especially the Jes sticks they sell very well and don’t require much work but when it’s too dry

We have a problem rotting the green juk sticks in the past it was easier we used to do it everywhere in water holes and rivers there’s a river nearby but now it doesn’t have enough water so now we use ponds that are normally used for fish

Farming I have a pond close to aup’s Pond climate change is making everything harder extreme weather conditions are disrupting ecosystems throughout South Asia says Tuli and Jud Farmers feel the effects Firsthand my ancestors already knew that we have very lomy soil here it only needs a little rain to retain moisture on sandy soil the jup plant would not survive more than 10 days without rain but that type of soil is rare here here it rains fairly reliably every 15 to 30 days in

Summer so our juk is not damaged unlike cotton or rice which need constant water jute does not require artificial irrigation AAS says that he’d never heard of a biodegradable plastic like material made from jute until A’s daughter told him about it he uses a conventional plastic sheet to protect his plants

I put the plastic sheet on top to prevent the mud from from getting in and sticking to the fibers depending on the quality of the fibers the jute has to soak in water for 12 to 15 days so that it starts to rot if the plant was

Already very ripe when it was harvested I can take it out again after just 8 to 10 days in A’s pond right next door the Jud sticks are almost ready over time the fibers can be removed from the stem by applying light pressure but this one isn’t ready yet I

Still have to press too hard I think it’ll take another four or 5 days in hisley IU is known as the model farmer he grows everything from oranges to jute and his family makes him proud his daughter AA hopes to go to university in my country people thinks

Farming is the male things not the females uh do this and I want to stud study the higher level and abroad country uh The Outsider of country I AO would not want to become a juk farmer even if she could the J now the juk farming is not

Not every people every farmers are cultivate Judes because the um Jud Ma Bangladesh J meals are offs so they don’t any uh they don’t any buyers to buy sell their Jes so many people are leave the cultivate juice and it is a shortage of canels they wash the dudes are washed

To separate the fibers there is shortage of canels people are their canals and building the building their house their construction meals factories J used to be very important for Bangladesh says Atia pulling out an old bank note I bring it because the symbol the symbol the farmer are C the farmer are

Separate fiber from the Jud and the part Cy they are separate the two and it is our national crops you know so the not has as the Sy symbolize these things so I bring it for you the Judes fiber is color that is uh that is wash from River

Water that is golden color Golden shali Ash we banga called sonali Ash that is golden fiber uh and it is a very it is a it is our national crops because it’s we exports the other countries and we get dollars the Currency until the middle of the 20th century jute was the world’s most important textile fiber after cotton to this day most of the world’s juk production still comes from this Region aluvial soil a climate that is humid and hot Jude has been harvested and processed here for centuries the British colonial rulers took the Jud grown here and sold it all over the world the highest quality fibers have a golden color these are said to grow best near

Rivers that’s why many Jud Farmers live by rivers or in the middle of rivers on islands called chars the charba lies in the middle of the jamuna river which originates in the Himalayas as the brahmaputra river am Islam is a Jud farmer here hey brother did you also plant J this

Season no no not this year I love life on the island but I live on the mainland because of the robbers and goons every day I come out here in the morning and leave in the evening I love the nature here the air is fresh and calming there’s so much to

Do on the island so many opportunities on the mainland I have new land and nothing to work with River Pirates that’s what Amin calls the people who attacked and seriously injured his brother he shows us the scars from the knife wounds he tells us that the pirate stole his

Cows crime is not the only thing that makes life hard on the chars in the rainy season it floods over twice so we move the cows to the mainland on boats within two or 3 days everything here is underwater then we climb up to the tin

Roof of the house and lay out wooden planks we just live up there aminol shows how high the water reached in recent years some chars even Disappear Completely for a Time 200 people live on this River Island without electricity or solid ground under their feet their Jud plants are resilient too they

Can withstand plooding for a good two weeks but even the robust juk plants have their limits the back there is totally ruined because of the extreme flooding we couldn’t Harvest quickly enough and they died the flood lasted for almost 3 weeks the leaves everything was R there are new

Fibers when the water comes and the plant remains underwater for too long turns black only the golden shimmering fibers are really worth anything even if the plants are only half submerged with water the fibers that come out are of low quality we get a lower price on the

Market because they are discolored or even black to prevent this J Farm Farmers on the chars have devised A system that aminul is proud of leaving the island is not an option they have nothing on the mainland the river is both a curse and a blessing for the Jud

Plants the water nourishes them with minerals but threatens them with mud the river water is murky the stream carries a lot of soil and clay and these substances stick to the jute fibers degrading quality and causing the jute to Blacken however if the riverwater is channeled into a pond or a canal where

The water is clear and fresh the J remains undamaged and retains its golden color so they have created artificial canals and water holes this is water that comes from the river all the impurities in the mud have settled to the bottom of the water hole so the water is clear and that’s

How you can still get the golden color otherwise there’s no chance of getting good quality fibers yet another problem is impacting the B River Island if there’s too much plastic around then it harms the crops so we gather it and burn it that solves the problem now people want to use less

Plastic in the past bags were made out of J now we’re going back to J shopping bags sacks Etc people are fed up with plastic that terrible Ex 200 km Downstream there are people who want to solve the plastic problem with the help of Jute in the capital DACA scientists are working on the shali bag project translating as the golden bag it looks and feels like a plastic bag but is made from cellulose derived from J it’s the invention of Bangladeshi scientist Dr Mubarak Ahmed Khan protective suits and masks have also been produced using this new

Bioplastic the main raw material is dried dud fiber then we find the cellulose because the main ingredient of the sh back is culus that’s we made this culus uh from uh jut cadis then we put into the reaction tank that reaction tanks we have to set uh set up the temp

Temperature pressure and time for the PO reaction and then we found this types of solution the exact formula is a secret and says Dr Khan the chali bag has suffered some setbacks it was just about to go into mass production when the co pandemic hit sewing bags from this Jude polymer

Is also still a problem The Producers don’t have access to the right machines using Jude for fiber reinforced Composites has already been proven to work Dr Khan has been experimenting with the material for years his jute reinforc polymer mixture also has a name jutin jutin is a composite material so

That is good for car bodies now and the France and German in as well as in uh Switzerland also they’re making some parts uh with the uh flux fiber enforce composite the property of flux is better than J in then some extent but uh flux the production of flux very limited in

Some countries and the price is three times or four times higher than that of J sometimes uh it’s I just a good quality flux is about 10 times higher than the Jud so so in that case J is the potential candidate for making the composit I have to do

Something every scientist has the mind to destination what I want to go there that is the destination so lastly I want to say why I’m using on J why because J is a really incredible plant because it contains 70% cellulose you cannot find any tree or crops in all

Over the world which contain 70 well there are some plants but it’s not planty it’s not cultivated anybody but Jud is a seasonal crops in Bangladesh so it is the harvesting time is is 110 days on the other hand one tree contain 30% cellus on average but it takes 10 to

15 years to [Applause] Mature this is plastic polythene so you can see the pattern of Burning it just like a paper or cloth no petrol here this is the conclusive and immediate proof of biodegradability this is natural producty this is Ash it sounds like the perfect fiber so why hasn’t the environmentally friendly Juke Revolution happened by now and what does the government which commissioned the shanali bag experiment

Make of this we ask Muhammad Abdul Kalam at the ministry of textiles in Jud that’s absolutely a Noel idea and Dr Mubarak Ahmed Khan is working on that you you already know and you already talked to him uh but the uh there are some issues actually uh that need to be

Uh addressed uh before going for the mass production kind of uh uh the costing things there are costing of course how much actually it cost that is one issue um because uh people people now get actually plastic bags or polyan bags very cheaply almost at no cost so

Yeah that is one one issue actually there is a step competition with the this plastic or potin bags though it is a very good product but the plastic Community is very very strong $3.5 trillions Dollar business every year for the single use shopping bag so they are not easily allowed you

To enter the market Plastics an industry that is blocking Jud Farmers expansion and increasingly jeopardizing their very [Applause] Existence the weekly meeting of the Jude farmers of hisley two of aasa’s brothers are also here today they tell us that plastic causes a lot of damage to their crops this plastic is very harmful when it burns sticky dangerous residues remain in the soil Jud on the other hand

Decomposes easily and it fertilizes the soil plastic takes years to decompose and when we plant rice it no longer grows well if the soil is poisoned they would be glad to grow more dute and thus produce more natural fibers but conditions have to improve many people including ayub’s uncle haar are

Unhappy that’s what we want we also think about it all the time jute is really profitable but we simply don’t have any more water holes where we can leave the stalks to rot it’s a real crisis there are so many things we could do we used to have more of

Them now they are leased by the government to people who are farming fish we are not allowed to plant or rot our jute there wherever there is water be it ditches or now they are all used for fish farming our hands are tied that’s why they have created their own artificial

Ponds these experienced Farmers make the hard work look easy having rubbed mineral oil on his body before getting into the stinking water water to relieve the itching I loosens the Jud fibers by hitting the stems and this is how you wind it up [Applause] although the cultivation process is

Tiring J has many benefits when it is Young we can eat it once we’ve extracted the fibers we make money from it we use dry J sticks as firewood all this makes up for the hard labor so even though J cultivation is painful it brings us lots of benefits

When J is still very young its leaves are used in cooking and are very healthy A’s wife Alo says the green vegetables are full of vitamins healthy and J leaves ensure that we build up our immune system J has changed our luck since it’s currently being sold at a good market

Price it costs less to produce compared with other crops we can recover the production EXP by selling the dried stocks alone if I grow J in a field I can earn 2 and a half times more than what I would earn with rice that’s why J cultivation is a profitable crop for us

Farmers It takes 3 days for the jute bundles to dry in the sun aaas then sell them to wholesalers who pick them up directly in Hisley to sell their Jud many many farmers travel to the small town of sha it’s one of the largest jute markets in the region the highest price for a kilo of J today is 80 taka they say that’s about 34s of a dollar six six 7 s count

Slowly wholesalers byy Jud then deliver it to the Mills hey we have to make five kilos less there are three categories of jutes first second and third rate quality that determines the price I pay I buy a good quality J at a high price this is medium quality get me the good

One that is low quality what is the difference high quality here first class the best it’s tight everything is Okay clean soft smooth this one is rough very different it’s from the floods wholesalers often store the jute in warehouses in order to increase demand from the Mills and thus drive up the price in recent years the government has closed down several jute Mills which were said to be

Unprofitable tens of thousands were left unemployed there are plans to modernize the industry according to the ministry the privately owned Hassan Ali jute Mill in bagura sources J from all over the country and produces it in three shifts 24 hours a day 7 days a [Applause] week the conditions are bad the temperatures

Hellish dust from the fibers creeps into the body exports go to India the neighboring country is the world’s largest producer of jute but they still need Imports to supplement their own Harvest products include sacking delicate textiles and a burlap sometimes called Hessian natural Jud Fabrics may not be very soft but they are durable and highly breathable production manager Muhammad Raman tells us that the material was already being used in the 18th century in Germany in the region of present day the so-called hen goes back to Germany where soldiers uniforms used to

Be made of Judah this was then adopted by the British Army and they then called the Fabric over 800 companies in Bangladesh now manufacture juk products and that number is growing More awareness of jud’s environmental sustainability could be created worldwide Global interest would really help say the hisley farmers Germany is one of the Pioneers in the industrial revolution if they were to import jute from our country and sign deals with the government we could produce more of the golden fiber and Supply

It we would Inspire us to harvest more and a lot of farmers would come forward cultivate the main challenge I think is the price fluctuation there’s no certainty if the government put a system in place to guarantee that it would buy the jute as it already does with rice then I think

This would mitigate the risk will use jute not plastic make a comeback the hisley farmers hope so but it’s up to others to make it happen until then aaz will continue farming as best he can today he finds himself at the market in the evening

When I get a good harvest and earn a good amount of money I buy sweets for the children at home I say to myself eat more don’t think about money today the Harvest that brings in the most money makes me the happiest when I sell my Harvest at the market I forget

All the hard work it motivates me to keep working and then I’m even happier For foreign [Applause] spee

Bangladesh is one of the largest jute producers in the world. Now, an invention from the capital Dhaka could make the fiber indispensable: Namely, the creation of a biodegradable foil from jute cellulose. This material could be used to replace the world’s disposable plastic bags with bags made from biodegradable jute products.

Jute is called the “golden fiber” in Bangladesh because it has a metallic shimmer and has brought local farmers modest prosperity. The leaves of the young plant can also be used to make salad and tea. But growing the plant is hard work. And it’s not always profitable.

Harvesting jute stalks is usually done by hand and involves cutting the stalks with a machete. Jute farmers Ayub Ali Akand and Afaz Uddin Akand from Hijli village in Bogura district in northern Bangladesh wade deep in water while working in the fields. The bundled jute stalks are transported for further processing. Eventually, they are made into jute fabric in the region’s large factories.

The scientist Mubarak Ahmad Khan has taken advantage of jute’s high cellulose content and developed a biodegradable foil. This is used to make the “Sonali Bag”, a sustainable replacement for the plastic bag.
The development of this innovative material from jute cellulose is promising in view of the worldwide pollution of the oceans and environment, from which even Bangladesh is not spared. But will the natural product have what it takes to prevail over the multi-billion dollar plastic industry? Would commercial success make it more attractive for Ajub and Afaz and their children to continue their arduous work as “fiber farmers”?

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