Sugarcane Farming Returns to Narayanganj's Araihazar and Rupganj for Jaggery

Sugarcane farming was growing again in Narayanganj district in January 2026, Jagonews24 reported on 30 January 2026. In Araihazar and Rupganj upazilas, where cane jaggery (gur) was once a well-known local product, farmers had over the previous few years gone back to the crop, boiling the cane juice beside their fields and selling the jaggery to buyers from different parts of the country. The district office of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) put that season's sugarcane area at 136 hectares, more than in the year before, and said most of the district's cane was grown in Rupganj and Araihazar.

Boro Binairchar and Chhoto Binairchar in Araihazar were once famous for their cane jaggery, but over time the tradition had been fading. In the past few years, the report said, residents had returned to what they describe as their ancestral occupation and had begun growing sugarcane on their land again, though on less land than before.

Farmers told Jagonews24 that cane was being grown in the Gopondi, Monohordi, Fazurkandi, Boro Binairchar and Chhoto Binairchar areas of Araihazar, and in the Jangir, Daudpur, Bholab and Hatabo areas of Rupganj. Their grandfathers and fathers grew the crop before them. For several years the farming had stopped for lack of improved seed cane, modern technology and skilled jaggery makers, they said, but it had now started again and the growers were seeing success.

The work is done close to the field: the cane is cut, crushed, and the juice is boiled down into jaggery on the spot. The jaggery is then supplied to different parts of the country.

Sugarcane farmer Shahidullah said: "I have grown sugarcane on 45 decimals of land this year. At one time the best cane jaggery in Bangladesh was made in Araihazar upazila. This is our traditional occupation. We have been growing it since our forefathers' time."

Abdur Rahim, a student at Safar Ali College in Araihazar, helps his father alongside his studies. "Sugarcane farming pays well. Every year we are busy at this time. Jaggery goes from here to different parts of the country," he said.

Farmer Abdul Halim said: "My father grew sugarcane before me, and my grandfather before him. That is how I learned to grow cane and make jaggery. We are profiting from it. High-quality jaggery is made here, with no chance of adulteration. People come from different parts of the country to buy it."

The farmers gave Jagonews24 their own figures. From planting the cane to boiling the juice, they said, it costs about Tk 3,500 to make one maund of jaggery, and that maund sells for Tk 8,000. The maund is the traditional South Asian unit of weight still used in Bangladesh's village markets.

Rupganj Upazila Agriculture Officer Afroza Sultana gave the officials' view of the margin: "Producing sugarcane costs Tk 50,000-60,000 per bigha, and it sells for Tk 1 lakh to Tk 1.25 lakh. Farmers also profit if they use mixed cropping, growing other vegetables alongside the cane."

Not everyone was confident about the future. Abdul Momen, another grower, said: "At least around Tk 1.5 crore worth of jaggery is produced here every year. But sugarcane farming also costs a lot. Perhaps one day there will be no sugarcane farming, because this is the age of industrialisation. Farmland is shrinking day by day. The land will fill up with houses and factories."

His worry reflects the shape of the district. Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh, lists agriculture as the main source of income for 28.48 percent of households in Araihazar and 22.72 percent in Rupganj, but for only 14.38 percent across Narayanganj district as a whole, where commerce, services and industry dominate. In both upazilas many households own no farmland: Banglapedia records 49.11 percent of households in Araihazar and 55.93 percent in Rupganj as landless.

The jaggery trade around Araihazar runs on a separate track from the state sugar mills, which buy cane from farmers in their own supply zones at a price set each season. For comparison, bdnews24 reported on 26 December 2025 that Joypurhat Sugar Mill had opened its 2025-26 crushing season carrying a loss of Tk 58 crore from the previous season, had 3,002 acres of cane in its zone, and had set the mill-gate price at Tk 625 per quintal of cane (Tk 615 at its outside purchase centres).

Araihazar Upazila Agriculture Officer Md Rasel Mia said: "Sugarcane is doing well in Araihazar. Farmers grow the Mishrimala variety, which is good for production. We are trying to get them to grow even better-quality cane, but that is being hampered by jackals. Sugarcane farming had declined at one point; now it is starting to rise again. This year it has been grown on 120 acres."

AJM Ahsan Shahid Sarkar, deputy director of the DAE in Narayanganj, said: "Sugarcane farming is up this year compared with other years. It has been grown on 136 hectares this year, and the area has grown from last year. Most sugarcane in Narayanganj is grown in Rupganj and Araihazar upazilas."

The two officers gave their figures in different units: the Araihazar officer spoke of 120 acres in his upazila, and the district office of 136 hectares for the whole district.

The DAE's Field Crops Wing publishes district targets for sugarcane in areas outside the sugar mill zones, known as non-mill zones, where cane is grown mainly for jaggery and for chewing. Narayanganj appears in these tables as a small grower. In a table signed on 23 October 2022, the DAE recorded Narayanganj's achievement for the 2021-22 year as 118 hectares of cane, 6,490 tonnes of production and a yield of 55 tonnes per hectare, and set the district's target for 2023-24 at 125 hectares, 7,000 tonnes and 56 tonnes per hectare. A later table, signed on 6 October 2025, put the district's 2024-25 achievement at 122 hectares, with a yield of 56 tonnes per hectare. The DAE notes that it counts the financial year by the harvest period.

The same 2022 table shows how Narayanganj compares with its neighbours. In 2021-22 Gazipur grew 1,622 hectares of non-mill-zone cane with a yield of 73.12 tonnes per hectare, Munshiganj 584 hectares, Narsingdi 139 hectares and Dhaka district 45 hectares.

Nationally, the DAE recorded 25,162 hectares of non-mill-zone sugarcane in 2021-22, producing 1,283,377 tonnes at an average of 51 tonnes per hectare. The area achieved in 2022-23 was 23,466 hectares, and the target for 2023-24 was set at 23,906 hectares and 1,251,064 tonnes, at 52.33 tonnes per hectare.

Narayanganj district lies just south-east of Dhaka in Dhaka division. Banglapedia gives its area as 684.37 square kilometres, divided into five upazilas, and lists the Shitalakshya, Meghna, Old Brahmaputra, Buriganga, Balu and Dhaleshwari among its main rivers. Araihazar is the largest of the five upazilas.

Araihazar covers 181.07 square kilometres on the district's eastern side, bordering Narsingdi Sadar to the north, Homna to the south, Banchharampur to the east, and Rupganj and Sonargaon to the west. Its main rivers are the Meghna and the Brahmaputra. Banglapedia lists paddy, jute, wheat, potato, mustard and vegetables as its main crops, and Gopaldi Bazar and Araihazar Bazar among its best-known markets.

Rupganj, 176.48 square kilometres, lies between Gazipur's Kaliganj and Palash in the north and Sonargaon in the south, with the Shitalakshya and Balu as its main rivers. Banglapedia names sugarcane among Rupganj's main crops, alongside paddy, jute, wheat, mustard and vegetables, and lists Bholaba Hat among the upazila's best-known markets. Vegetables are among its main exports.

Sugarcane is a tall tropical grass of the genus Saccharum; Saccharum officinarum is the species most widely grown for sugar. Banglapedia describes it as one of Bangladesh's most important cash crops. It grows best on rich, moist clay-loam soil with some sand and silt, in a soil pH between 6 and 7.5, with high temperatures, strong sunlight and frequent showers in the growing season and dry weather at maturity. Irrigation is not needed where annual rainfall is 1,250 to 1,500 millimetres.

Farmers plant cane from stem cuttings called setts; the stubble left after harvest can sprout again as a second crop, known as ratoon. In Bangladesh the harvest runs from October to March, which is why the jaggery-making season in places like Araihazar falls in winter. Because sugarcane occupies the land for the whole year, Banglapedia notes, many farmers had turned to other profitable crops, and the country's cane area and production had fallen as a result.

The Bangladesh Sugarcrop Research Institute (BSRI) has also developed a seedling method, the seedling transplanting method (STP), known in Bengali as ropa akh chash, in which seedlings are first raised in polythene or jute bags or in seedbeds and then transplanted to the field at fixed spacing. According to the institute, the method needs only a quarter of the seed cane of conventional planting, ensures the right number of plants, lets cane be planted at any time of year and can shorten the growing period.

The mixed cropping that the Rupganj officer recommended is also part of the BSRI's advice. The institute has released intercropping packages suited to different areas, such as a single row of cane with potato, onion or garlic between rows, or paired rows of cane with potato, onion or garlic followed by mungbean or a green manure crop.

Mishrimala, the variety the Araihazar farmers grow, is one of the old local canes of Bangladesh. Banglapedia names Mishrimala and Gendari as the local varieties mostly grown for chewing. Most cane in the north of the country has narrow, hard stems about 3 centimetres across, while the varieties of the southern and eastern districts usually have softer stalks up to 5 centimetres thick.

The improved varieties the officer hoped to introduce come from the BSRI at Ishurdi in Pabna. The institute traces its origin to a Sugarcane Seedling Testing Station set up in Dhaka in 1931; a Sugarcane Research Station followed in 1951, and an Act of Parliament made it an autonomous institute in 1996. It now works under the Bangladesh Sugarcrop Research Institute Act 2019, whose mandate covers research on crops and trees used for sugar, jaggery and syrup and technology for making them.

By its own account the BSRI had developed 44 high-yielding sugarcane varieties, with average yields of more than 100 tonnes per hectare and sugar recovery above 12 percent, some of them suited to difficult conditions such as saline land. It transfers its technology to farmers through its training and technology transfer division, three regional stations at Gazipur, Thakurgaon and Subarnachar and eight sub-stations, using training, demonstration plots, farm visits and fairs. Among the technologies it lists is a package for char and hill areas: profitable jaggery-producing and chewing cane varieties, with jaggery making or direct sale of the cane as a way out of poverty.

Gur is unrefined sugar made by boiling down plant juice; in Bangladesh it is made mostly from sugarcane and date palm juice. Banglapedia describes the cane process: before the sugar factories were set up, cane juice was widely used to make gur in place of sugar. The harvested cane is cut into pieces and fed into a press, traditionally turned by bullocks; the juice is cleaned, boiled in large pans and, when thick, set into dry cakes. Besides the solid form, cane jaggery is also made as jhola (semi-liquid), nali and chita.

The farmers' remark that there is "no chance of adulteration" in Araihazar's jaggery speaks to a concern elsewhere in the country. In November 2024 Prothom Alo reported that in Shibganj upazila of Chapainawabganj, unrefined imported sugar and jaggery were being melted into cane juice to make what was sold as cane jaggery. A senior scientific officer of the BSRI told the paper that any harm could be judged only after laboratory tests, but that mixing anything into cane juice to make jaggery is illegal. The BSRI, for its part, lists among its technologies a method for making clean, hydros-free granular cane jaggery using herbal clarifiers.

Jaggery is still a sugar. The World Health Organization's 2015 guideline recommends that adults and children keep their intake of free sugars, the sugars added to food and drink as well as those in honey, syrups and fruit juices, to less than 10 percent of total energy intake, and says that cutting it below 5 percent, roughly 25 grams a day, would bring further benefits. Anyone with diabetes or another health condition should ask a doctor how much sweetener of any kind is safe.

The jackals the Araihazar officer blamed are a known enemy of sugarcane. The golden jackal, Canis aureus, is the only jackal species found in Bangladesh, and it is widespread in forests, grasslands and villages. It is mainly nocturnal and eats small mammals, insects and lizards as well as carrion. Banglapedia notes that it is said to be fond of sugarcane and maize, and that in the cane-growing areas of Rajshahi, Ishurdi, Rangpur, Setabganj and Joypurhat the jackal is considered a notorious pest of the crop.

Banglapedia's account of the crop lists other enemies too. Besides nematodes, mites, rats, jackals and some birds, about 15 insect species are major pests of sugarcane in Bangladesh, among them the top shoot borer, stem borers, termites, leafhoppers and mealybugs; the top shoot borer is the most widespread and the hardest to control. The main diseases are red rot, smut, wilt, sett rot or pineapple disease and mosaic. Healthy setts treated before planting, better farm practice and improved varieties have kept disease at low levels, the encyclopedia says. Growers who see pest or disease damage can get advice on control from their upazila agriculture office.

Photo: Ananto Biswas Utshow / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Field Crops Wing, Bangladesh Sugarcrop Research Institute (BSRI), Banglapedia, bdnews24, Prothom Alo, World Health Organization (WHO)