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Three years and a half went by since the government had issued gazette for mandatory use of jute bag for poultry and fish feed packaging but its implementation has not been framed yet.
Feed manufacturers are still using Polypropylene (PP) woven bags that account for around 30 crore annually which pollutes environment while a huge amount of raw jute is sent overseas due to lackluster local demand.
Sources said if feed makers had turned to jute sack for packaging, the sector would make a turnaround contributing to around Tk 3,000-crore market yearly.
Jute millers claim that they wrote to the Ministry of Textiles and Jute several times to execute “Mandatory Jute Packaging Act, 2010” while the ministry also held several meetings with the stockholders, but to no avail.
“Traditional jute sack is not usable for feed packaging. To use jute, specialised jute sack is needed, which will cost three to four times more and shoot up feed price by Tk 2 per kilogramme,” the feed manufacturers gave their version.
The textiles and jute ministry, however, claims that it is trying to execute the law, which will come into force in no time.
“We sat with the stakeholders in this regard. The execution of law is underway. We will implement it as soon as possible,” Additional Secretary Mohammad Ataur Rahman, also director general (DG) of the Department of Jute, told The Business Post.
Industry insiders say the sector has around Tk 30,000 crore investment and Tk 50,000 crore annual market which subscribes to about 1.44 per cent of GDP.
More than 200 companies produce 6.3 million metric tonnes of feed annually while the total demand is 6.7 million metric tonnes, according to the Feed Industries Association Bangladesh (FIAB).
In order to regain the lost glory of jute and ensure the best possible diverse utilisation of the golden fibre, the government enacted the “Mandatory Jute Packaging Act, 2010” and “Mandatory Jute Packaging Rule-2013”.
As per the rule, the government made jute packaging mandatory for fish and poultry feed packaging on August 6, 2018.
Basically, the feed makers are using PP woven to control air supply which helps retain the quality of feed. But traditional jute sack and bag are not airtight. For this reason the textiles and jute ministry asked the jute millers to develop their sack and bag in such a way so that the feed industries could use them.
“We are able to manufacture airtight jute sack which is usable for packaging feed,” said A Barik Kahn, secretary general, Bangladesh Jute Mills Association.
Md Ahsanuzzaman, the FIAB general secretary and director of Spectra Hexa Feeds, said they purchase PP sack on average Tk 35, but the price of specialised jute sack might be Tk 120 or more.
“So, there is a huge difference between PP sack and traditional jute sack.”
