Gaibandha jute farmers who sold early to repay debts miss this season's price rise

Most jute farmers in Gaibandha, in northern Bangladesh, sold their crop cheaply at harvest to repay debts, and had nothing left to sell when prices at the district's markets reached Tk 3,900 to Tk 4,200 a maund in October 2025. Jagonews24 reported this from the district on 26 October. Figures from the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in the same report showed less land under jute in the district than in 2021.

Jute was once called the lifeblood of the country's economy, and the crop is still known as the golden fibre. According to the report, farmers in the northern region still depend on it, but they complained of years without a fair price. Farmers said the cost of daily necessities keeps rising while the price of jute does not keep pace. Prices did rise that season, yet most growers felt no benefit, because they had been forced to sell cheaply at the start.

Citing the DAE in Gaibandha, Jagonews24 said 15,000 hectares in the district were under jute in 2021 and 14,313 hectares in 2022. The following year brought no change, and in 2024 the area fell further to 13,790 hectares. In the 2025-26 fiscal year it rose slightly, by 32 hectares, but the agriculture department had still not met its target.

A report by the state news agency BSS on 19 April 2025 gives an idea of that target. Setting out the Rangpur agriculture region's plan for the Kharif-1 season, it said farmers planned to grow jute on 14,560 hectares in Gaibandha, the second-largest area in the region after Kurigram's 17,250 hectares. The same plan listed 9,950 hectares in Rangpur, 6,369 in Nilphamari and 3,940 in Lalmonirhat. BSS added that recent good prices had encouraged farmers to plan larger areas.

Reports do not always agree on the year. The Bengali edition of The Daily Star, in a regional list published on 9 September 2022, gave Gaibandha 15,000 hectares for that very year. The same list put the five districts together at 51,627 hectares, down from 56,412 hectares the year before. So the area attached to a given year can differ from one report to another.

Where jute is grown inside the district can be seen in DAE upazila figures carried by United News of Bangladesh (UNB) on 5 August 2023: 4,565 hectares in Sundarganj, 4,390 in Fulchhari, 3,002 in Saghata, 945 in Sadar, 641 in Gobindaganj, 480 in Sadullapur and 290 in Palashbari.

Older reports from the district show the jute area moving with prices. In August 2011 The Daily Star called Saghata and Gobindaganj the district's main jute-producing upazilas and, citing the upazila agriculture offices, gave 6,350 hectares in Saghata and 1,225 in Gobindaganj. In August 2016 the paper said Saghata's jute land had risen to 3,540 hectares from 740 the year before, as farmers in six unions turned to high-yield tossa jute after an unexpectedly profitable season.

The Jagonews24 correspondent wrote that a few years earlier farmers' fields in the district were green with jute, and that other crops had now taken their place. Farmers said jute costs more to grow and that the price does not follow the rising cost. After growing the crop, retting it, stripping the fibre and drying it in the sun, they said, they bring it to market only to be disappointed.

According to the report, jute was selling at various markets in the district in October at Tk 3,900 to Tk 4,200 a maund. One to one and a half months earlier the price had been between Tk 2,500 and Tk 2,700. Even so, farmers were not gaining, because most had already sold cheaply to repay loans. Those who had stored jute, the report said, were the ones taking the profit.

Moti Mia, a farmer from the char area of Fulchhari in Gaibandha, told Jagonews24: "The price is good now, but we have no jute at home. I sold at Tk 2,800 at harvest. If I had not sold then, I could not have repaid my loan. Those who stored it are the ones making a profit now."

Other reports show higher prices earlier in the same season. On 15 September 2025 The Financial Express reported from Rangpur that jute in five districts including Gaibandha was selling at Tk 3,600 to Tk 4,300 a maund depending on quality, against Tk 2,100 to Tk 2,800 the year before. Citing the DAE in Rangpur, it gave 48,857 hectares and 660,921 bales for the region and described growers there as happy with yields and prices. It gave no separate price for Gaibandha.

Citing the Department of Jute, The Financial Express said on 12 October that farmers had received Tk 3,400 to Tk 3,700 a maund from August to mid-September, and that rates had since risen to Tk 4,300 to Tk 4,500. The paper also reported raw jute reaching Tk 4,000 a maund in several local markets in Rajshahi on 9 October. These reports cover different markets and grades, and they do not use the same maund: some take it as 37.32 kilograms, others as 40.

Local farmers allege that jute prices in the markets are set by jute mill owners and a syndicate of middlemen, known as foria. They claim these buyers purchase jute cheaply at the start of the season, store it and raise the price when demand grows, so that farmers lose the chance to sell at a fair price. Nazmul Hossain of Kanchipara union lamented: "If the government bought jute from farmers from the start of the season, we would survive. Now we are just dying at the hands of the syndicate."

Wholesalers answered that they do not set jute prices and that big mill owners dominate the market. Shah Alam, a wholesaler at Fulchhari market, said: "We buy jute locally, but the price is set on the instructions of mill owners in Dhaka. We only buy and sell at the price they give." The Jagonews24 report carried no response from mill owners.

Such complaints are not new in Gaibandha. In August 2011 The Daily Star reported that, after the state jute mills corporation closed its lone purchasing centre at Mohimaganj in Gobindaganj, growers feared middlemen would take over the market. Poor and marginal farmers were hit hardest, the paper said, because they had to sell cheaply to repay local moneylenders. A report that October said the district had 28 big and small jute markets, and market lease holders said jute that fetched Tk 1,800 to Tk 2,100 a maund at the start of harvest had fallen to Tk 800 to Tk 1,300. The chief jute inspector in Gaibandha at the time linked falling purchases to fewer licensed traders, 450 that year against 681 the year before.

In the 2025 season the accusation of hoarding came from millers as well. In The Financial Express on 12 October, the chairman of the Bangladesh Jute Spinners Association spoke of unhealthy competition to hoard jute, and a miller claimed that Section 17 of the Jute Act bars anyone from storing more than 1,000 maunds for a month, but that the law was not being enforced. So farmers point at mill owners and middlemen, wholesalers point at mill owners, and the millers' association points at hoarders. These reports do not mention any official inquiry that has proved any of the claims.

Sobhan Mia, a farmer in Kanchipara union, told Jagonews24: "Fertiliser, seed, labour, everything costs more now. And we have to take the risk of floods and drought. After so much hard work there is no profit. Still, in the char areas nothing but jute can be grown at this time of year." The geography of Fulchhari lies behind those words. According to Banglapedia, much of this 314.03-square-kilometre upazila is char land, with the Brahmaputra, the Old Brahmaputra and the Jamuna flowing through it. Kanchipara is one of its seven unions, and jute is listed among its main crops beside paddy, wheat, sugarcane, maize and pulses. Its noted markets include Kanchipara, Udakhali and Fulchhari.

Gaibandha district covers 2,114.77 square kilometres and has seven upazilas. Banglapedia gives agriculture as the main source of income, at 65.08 per cent. In the UNB report of 2023, the chairman of Mollar Char union said people in 165 char areas depend on jute.

Banglapedia defines a char as land formed in a river course or estuary, which takes the name once it is covered with vegetation. Some chars are surrounded by water all year; others are joined to the mainland under normal flow. Poorer soils, erosion and floods generally make them less productive than the mainland. The Jamuna has the most char land, about 100,000 hectares in 1992, and about 75 per cent of its chars lasted one to nine years.

No separate cost figure for Gaibandha could be found, but reports from nearby and other districts give an idea. In 2022 a Kurigram farmer put the cost at Tk 13,000 to Tk 16,000 a bigha and said a profit needed Tk 3,600 to Tk 4,000 a maund; yields in the Rangpur region were then 6 to 7 maunds a bigha. In 2023 costs in the Rangpur region were Tk 15,000 to Tk 19,000 a bigha. In 2025 a grower in Puthia, Rajshahi, spoke of about Tk 20,000, while the president of the Faridpur jute farmers' association put it at Tk 40,000 to Tk 42,000. The Financial Express report of September also noted some Rangpur-region growers unhappy with the cost of fertiliser, pesticide and labour.

According to Banglapedia, two species are grown in Bangladesh: white jute and tossa jute. White jute tolerates waterlogging and suits low land, while tossa suits medium to lower-medium land. Sowing runs from about the end of February to the end of May, and the crop is cut at the flowering stage four to five months later. The cut plants are bundled and left standing for five to seven days to shed their leaves, then submerged in clear, slow-flowing water for 12 to 15 days. Once retting is complete, the fibre is separated by hand, washed, sun-dried and sold locally. Jute is labour-intensive and is mostly grown by marginal, poor and small landowners.

Without water, losses begin at this stage. In August 2023 UNB reported that, despite a good crop, farmers in Gaibandha's char areas could not ret their jute because drought and a heatwave had dried up ponds and water bodies. The district's DAE deputy director at the time said lack of rain had dried up water bodies and delayed retting. Some farmers pumped water, but it dried up within two or three days in the heat, and irrigation raised their costs. In July 2025 a similar crisis was reported from Lalmonirhat, in the same region: some growers were hauling jute three to four kilometres, and some were retting in dirty, stagnant water, which produces darker, lower-quality fibre.

Quality bears directly on price. According to The Daily Star in August 2025, jute is graded A to C by fibre length, strength, colour and cleanliness. In October 2022 the paper reported that fibre retted in shallow ponds or the mud of canal beds in the northern districts came out hard and dark, that buyers offered less for it, and that small mills had slowed production. The Department of Jute in Rangpur then counted 19 small mills in five northern districts, one of them in Gaibandha.

Ribbon retting, which uses less water, has been promoted for years. In 2010 field demonstrations were held in five districts including Rangpur and Lalmonirhat with help from the Bangladesh Jute Research Institute. The DAE also recommends the method, but the 2022 report said farmers were unwilling because it damages the jute sticks, which also sell well. In April 2025 BSS said the DAE was training farmers in the Rangpur region to separate and decompose fibre when water is scarce.

Farmers told Jagonews24 that they grow jute each year hoping for a good price and end up with losses. Reports from earlier years, from the north and elsewhere, show that prices did not simply fall but swung widely, which makes a farmer's sums harder:

• In August 2016 early high-yield jute in Saghata sold at Tk 1,600 a maund, against Tk 1,400 the year before.
• In September 2022 the rate in Lalmonirhat was Tk 2,600 to Tk 2,900, against Tk 3,000 to Tk 3,300 the year before.
• In August 2023 traders in Rangpur city quoted Tk 2,100 to Tk 2,300, against Tk 3,000 to Tk 3,200 the year before. That same month UNB reported Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000 in Gaibandha.
• In October 2024, amid a Department of Jute projection of lower output, the finest jute sold at about Tk 3,600, against Tk 2,700 the year before.
• In August 2025 The Daily Star put raw jute at Tk 3,800 to Tk 4,000, against Tk 3,000 to Tk 3,200 the year before.

The earlier record dates from 2021. The Financial Express gave it as Tk 6,200, while Prothom Alo wrote in January 2022 that it was Tk 7,000. By Prothom Alo's account the season had opened that July at only Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000. So a gap between early-season and late-season prices had been seen before this year's events in Gaibandha. DAE officials spoke of good prices in the 2025 reports, while Gaibandha's farmers complained that those prices came after their selling was over.

According to The Daily Star of 11 August 2025, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) put national output in fiscal 2024-25 at 89.5 lakh bales of 180 kilograms each, lower than the year before. The DAE put the 2025 area at 705,000 hectares, with a production target of 83.3 lakh bales. Official figures do not always agree: in October 2024 the Department of Jute projected about 7,574,000 bales for that season, with a bale of around 182 kilograms. For an earlier year, BBS gave 84 lakh bales for fiscal 2022-23. The Daily Star listed Gaibandha among the main producing districts, with Faridpur, Rajbari, Sirajganj, Kushtia, Pabna, Manikganj, Tangail, Jamalpur, Rangpur, Kurigram and Bogura.

As prices rose, a commerce ministry circular dated 8 September 2025 made raw jute exports subject to prior approval: exporters must apply and may ship only the approved quantity. The textiles and jute secretary told The Daily Star that the government wanted more raw jute on the domestic market, that farmers had harvested 90 per cent of their crop, and that the decision would be revised if prices fell drastically. The chairman of the jute spinners' association called it right for the national interest, while an exporter said it would hurt farmers and benefit traders and millers. Under approvals dated 30 September the ministry allowed 12 firms to export 2,984 tonnes. The Department of Jute put raw jute exports in fiscal 2024-25 at 8.62 lakh bales, the lowest in three years.

One base of domestic demand is the rule on jute packaging. Section 4 of the Mandatory Jute Packaging Act 2010 says goods prescribed by the rules may be sold, distributed or supplied only in jute wrappers. According to a Dhaka Tribune report of 2021, 19 products are listed, including paddy, rice, wheat, sugar and fertiliser. The Department of Jute checks compliance through mobile courts, though industry groups say compliance is incomplete. Mills are the other side of demand: The Daily Star reported that 25 state-run jute mills closed from July 2020. Prothom Alo reported in 2022 that, by the two mill owners' associations' account, private mills need about 6 million bales a year.

According to the Jagonews24 report, natural disasters, rising production costs and an unstable market were making farmers lose interest in jute. Many still believed that effective government action could bring back the golden fibre's good days. What that action should be differs by speaker. Nazmul Hossain wanted government buying from the start of the season. In 2022 farmers in the Rangpur region demanded a government-fixed price, and a Kurigram wholesaler said that would help both farmers and traders. In October 2025 the chairman of the Bangladesh Jute Mills Association called for a minimum raw jute price tied to production costs.

Government support includes free seed and fertiliser. According to The Daily Star in 2025, farmers receive 1 kilogram of seed and 14 kilograms of fertiliser as incentives, and BSS said high-yield seed, fertiliser and other support were provided free of cost that season. Atikul Islam, deputy director of the DAE in Gaibandha, told Jagonews24 that the jute market was good at present and that 2,000 farmers in the district had been given seed and fertiliser that year to encourage cultivation. Only if a fair price for jute can be ensured, he said, will farmers' interest in growing it return.

Photo: Frameofashik / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The top picture shows jute being loaded onto boats at a traditional jute market in Bangladesh in October 2024, as background.

Sources: Jagonews24, The Daily Star, The Financial Express, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), United News of Bangladesh (UNB), Prothom Alo, Dhaka Tribune, Banglapedia, FAOLEX.