PABNA, Sept 7: The farmers have been rotting their jute plants in the rivers and other water bodies of the district as the 'ribbon retting', a new method for rotting the plants with less water, is yet to gain popularity here.
Introduced among the local farmers 35 years ago, on a very limited scale, the 'ribbon retting' method became ineffective due to lack of steps for its promotion.
This year the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) took an initiative to re-introduce the system but due to lack of training and response of the farmers it resulted in failure again.
"We are not familiar with the system. A few farmers were informed about the new system but they did not show much interest," Johurul Islam, a farmer of Narayanpur village under sadar upazila, said.
Mashiur Rahman, another farmer of Khudra-Matebaria village under the same upazila, said, "Ribbon retting method is easy but we took training on it only for a day, which was not sufficient." Some elderly farmers said that the then upazila chairman introduced this system about 35 years ago, but no step had been taken to promote the system among the farmers over the past three decades.
"This season five farmers were imparted training in each upazila. Local farmers were provided with Tk 250 each for purchasing polythene and digging holes to re-introduce the 'ribbon retting' system. It may take time to adopt the system by each and every farmer," said Deputy Director of DAE, Bibhuti Bhushon Sarkar.
It may be mentioned here generally farmers remove fibre after rotting jute plants in water for two to three weeks, but 'ribbon retting' system extraction of the fibre does not take much time and it requires less water.
Ribbon retting needs polythene and a big hole in the soil. After separating raw fibre from the jute stalk it is kept in the water hole.
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Jute rotting pollutes Pabna environment
Our Correspondent | Published: September 08, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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