Lac is a promising cash crop in Bangladesh, but for several reasons, including poor prices, the number of lac farmers is falling day by day and the area under the crop is shrinking.

Dr Md Mokhlesur Rahman, chief scientific officer of the Lac Research Centre, says lac farming has dwindled until it is now confined to one or two areas of Chapainawabganj.

"Lac really isn't there the way it was. Some farmers have held on, but they have become discouraged because they don't get a proper price. Recently, though, the price has risen a little and some are becoming interested again," he told BBC Bangla.

Mr Rahman said lac was once grown in many places in Chapainawabganj, but it is now limited to a few villages in Nachole upazila.

Sadikul Islam, a lac farmer in Nachole, says he and some other farmers are still trying. He himself supplies lac to chanch-making factories in Bogura and to various pharmaceutical companies.

"For a while there was no price at all, but now it has gone up a little. So I am thinking of expanding cultivation."

The reality, however, is that the lac farming once seen across large areas including Chapainawabganj Sadar and Shibganj can no longer be seen.

The lac is a kind of tiny insect. A sticky secretion comes from glands spread under its skin, and it gradually hardens and thickens until it coats the branches of the host tree.

This coating on the host tree's branches is known as lac, or laha. The hard coating is later scraped off the branches, refined and used for various purposes.

Lac can be produced from two kinds of lac insect. It is mainly produced on host trees such as boroi (jujube), palash and babla.

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.