More than a decade ago, some organizations promoted and encouraged the cultivation of oil palm throughout the country and presented it as a crop with great potential. So what followed?
With no local factories, there is little else to do but chop down the palms, according to one palm planter. Photo: Sanjida Jui
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With no local factories, there is little else to do but chop down the palms, according to one palm planter. Photo: Sanjida Jui
Abul Hossain and his friends bought some hills in the Matiranga from Khagrachhari in 2004. The hills were covered with dense native forest, inhabited by a large number of diverse wildlife. He always knew, however, that even a rich forest does not bring in much money, and he had to develop it one day.
In 2007-2008, he felled the forest and planted oil palm seedlings by the thousands. The decision was taken after some organizations promoted oil palm cultivation across the country and presented it as a crop with great potential.
Fast forward to 2022, Abul Hossain is replacing his palm gardens with timber trees like teak.
“The first harvest that came after five years was good, but we couldn’t find anyone to sell it to,” Abul told Business Standard. The 35-acre garden had 20,000 trees. The fruits could be harvested every three months.
The organizations that promoted the planting could not be reached. Abul can’t even remember their names correctly now.
Planters are now unable to take care of their palm groves.
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Planters are now unable to take care of their palm groves.
“We invested Tk 1.5 crore in this but received no benefit,” Abul said. The saplings cost him 110 Tk each. In addition, razing the forests and maintaining the palm groves required a lot of investment.
There were 6 to 7 lakh oil palm trees in Khagrachari, Bandarban and Rangamati, Abul said. Now the planters, completely disappointed, cut down the trees and replace them with fruit and woody plants.
Abul himself cut down half of his trees. His current financial situation has deteriorated to such an extent that it does not even allow him to cut down all the trees at once. A few months ago, he felled five acres of palm plantation and planted teak, Abul said.
But didn’t he sell palm at all? We asked.
Some time ago a man bought palm fruits from her for Tk 10 per kg, he informed me.
“After collecting the fruits and sending them to the collection points, we only benefited from 2 to 3 Tk per kg. Considering the size of the investment, it’s nothing,” Abul said.
The man who bought the palm, Arab Ali, told TBS that a small informal factory in Chattogram extracts palm juice to supply to soap factories. Demand is low, he says.
A palm garden in Matiranga, Khagrachhari.
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A palm garden in Matiranga, Khagrachhari.
The same situation faced planters across the country. Rokon Ujjaman, a tea planter from Panchagarh, said similar organizations came and urged farmers to buy saplings from them and cultivate palm groves, which some farmers did. When these shady organizations disappeared, they eventually gave up hope and cleared the plantation areas to grow something else, especially tea.
But efforts have been made to complete the supply chain.
A farm in Meherpur, Botanica Agro Ltd, set up a mill in the Bscic industrial zone of the district in 2013. They brought together investment partners for this purpose, motivated farmers to take care of the palm trees and ensured good yields, qualifying “liquid gold” palm oil. .’
The farm, however, did not experience much success in operation.
“By the time we started operations, people had lost interest in the palm tree. They weren’t taking care of the plants anymore, so the harvest was not good,” recalls Kazi Mehedi Hasan, former administrative manager of the farm. .
Two local engineers built the oil extraction mill with a combination of imported machinery and locally sourced components. CHT planters also tried a similar approach, but failed.
“Instead of producing oil, people were more interested in selling saplings, which were sold at a price of up to Tk 1,500,” Mehedi said.
Many palm gardens have been cultivated in Khulna, Jashore, Chuadanga and Meherpur regions, he added. The gardens were 15 to 20 bigha in size. “We had the capacity to process 1 to 1.5 tons of palm trees every day. But we couldn’t even harvest 100 kg of palm fruit per day,” the entrepreneur lamented.
As a result, the factory quickly closed down.
It was a natural habitat for wildlife until planters razed the forest.
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It was a natural habitat for wildlife until planters razed the forest.
Sources from the Ministry of Agriculture said that the palm was not included in their list of 104 agricultural products and that the plantations had been carried out without their consultation.
But this was not done only within the framework of private enterprise. The Bangladesh Forest Department has also established palm gardens.
“The Forestry Department did some trial palm plantations during the period 1970-80. It failed. First reason, we don’t have enough land for large-scale plantation; second, the palm produced did not have the standard protein level and the production was unsatisfactory,” said Mollah Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, Deputy Chief Conservator of Forests, Social Forestry and Extension, Bangladesh Forest Department, at The Business Standard.
The palm plantation was declared a failure and was never replanted by the Forest Department. But the trees that were planted were not felled either. There are palm groves in Satchari National Park, Khadimnagar National Park and other places that have existed for decades, which could have been a natural wildlife habitat.
Existing private palm plantations are mostly located on hills, which have been created by the razing of forests. Ecocide is not going to pay off, the forest manager said.
“As far as I know, there is no future for these plantations, there is no production potential,” Mizanur Rahman said.
Very recently, a company named MRT Agro Products Bd Ltd has started producing refined palm oil at its factory in Mymensingh along with its rice bran oil factory. Arab Ali, the man from Khargachhari, also works in the supply chain of this company.
“We manage to collect 100 to 200 tons of palm each month. The oil produced weighs 20% of it. Some months we see no collection,” said Rafiqul Islam, director of MRT Agro.
The company collects from 1 to 2 plantations located in the CHTs. It has been running for eight to nine months.
We asked Abul Hossain, the planter of Khagrachari, if he could supply his palm directly to MRT Agro to ensure profitability. He said it was impossible for them to harvest enough palm trees to send to Mymensingh. Providing a smaller batch is not cost effective, adding locally based factories would be a solution.
“The only hope I have left is that I can cut down all my palm trees,” the frustrated planter said.
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