Rice

Rice is foremost cereal in Bangladesh. It is the seed of monocot plants Oryza Sativa widely produced in tropical and semi tropical region particularly in Asia. Bangladesh has lands of excellent sub tropical climate, abundant water from the river Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna which produce an excellent chance to grow rice. Bangladesh is an agricultural country, most of the peoples use agriculture for ther livelihood where rice is chief. Accordingly the world rice statistics of 2003-2004, Bangladesh was produced 26.4 million metric tones rice and Bangladesh took place the 4th rice producing country in the world.

Rural Bangladesh

Types of Rice Produced in Bangladesh

Bangladesh produces rice through a year as Aush, Amon and Boro. Amon is generally cultivated at December to January where Boro is March to May and Aush is July to August. In the year 1997-98, Bangladesh was produced 19 million metric tones rice which was just 15percent bellow than total need of the country. Among total land area, Amon is produced about 56.63%, Boro is produced about 28.17% and rest is produced as Aush. According to the statistics of the year 2009-10 Bangladesh produced 32356 thousands metric tones rice which was 91% of the total demand.

Cultivation

The cultivation of rice in Bangladesh varies according to seasonal changes in the water supply. The largest harvest is Amon, occurring in November and December and accounting for more than half of annual production. Some rice for the Amon harvest is sown in the spring through the broadcast method, matures during the summer rains, and is harvested in the fall.The higher yielding method involves starting the seeds in special beds and transplanting during the summer monsoon. The second harvest is Aush, involving traditional strains but more often including high-yielding, dwarf varieties. Rice for the Aush harvest is sown in March or April, benefits from April and May rains, matures during in the summer rain, and is harvested during the summer.

Harvesting

Rice harvesting is a festival in Bangladesh. When rices ripe properly or maturity is come than farmers become ready to harvest. Harvesting is done at different times accordingly different categories of rice and their cultivation. Harvesting may be done in hand method(directly by hand) or mechanical(by machine). In Bangladesh, farmers harvest with the help of sickles(kanchi) directly by hand. Harvesting is generally done by day labours through a low wages in Bangladesh.

Processing & Storage

After harvesting it needs to process to get rice from the plant. Processing is done either manually or help of machine. After collecting rice now it dries in sun light for storage properly, otherwise it may attack by bacteria or fungus.

 Different Foods

Rice is our major food which is use as different recipe. Using rice a wide range of delicious foods being produced in Bangladesh. Among them vat, muri, khai, biriani, polao, morog-polar, kacchi-biriani, payesh are produced widely. As a Bengali Nation we use different recipe of rice mostly as our daily foods. Rice is a nutritious and  a carbohydrate food.

Jute Fiber

Jute is a long, shiny, cellulosic vegetable fiber. It is a multi-celluler natural fiber, produce soft and coarse yarn. Jute plant is obtained from the genus Corchorus, classified in the order Tiliaceae. Generally two types of Jute plant grow commercially, they are C. capsularis and C. olitorius. It is second naturally growing cheap fiber which is used in successfully for producing a wide variety of products. Jute fiber composed of cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin, where lignin is respnsible for the hardness of this fiber in some extent. For this reason jute spun fall under some problem, it breaks up and make wastage. Therefore jute is kept for conditioning about two days with a mixture of jute batching oil. Jute technology is now a top subject to study to make quality and variety products from jute.

Jute Plant in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is an agricultural based country located in South Asia. Agriculture is the prime occupation of the major peoples in Bangladesh. In 1947-48 Bangladesh grown about 80% of total jute in the world which produced lot of foreign money that was majority of the total revenue of the country. For this reason jute is called as "Golden Fiber" of Bangladesh. Farmers of Bangladesh got a heavy source to earn money and lead their potential life with happiness. In this session Bangladesh made some jute industry across the country where jute technology was used to make different categories products. But in the year 1975-76 Bangladesh grown only 25% jute fiber across the world, because in this time already many other countries began to grow jute plant commercially and successfully by applying new technology. After some years farmers of Bangladesh uninspired to grow jute plant for reducing the demand of Bangladeshi jute and jute products in foreign market, also they suffered from the whole seller to get genuine price of jute. Therefore jute technology began to destroy in the past successive years. Also some political reasons are responsible for this worst situation of this technology in Bangladesh. The other countries grow Jute plant are India, Nepal, China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand etc.

Jute Cultivation

Since Bangladesh dominates a huge percent of jute cultivation so we shared the cultivation according to this country. January-February month is the best time to plow jute plant. At the first rainy day of this month you have to grow jute seeds. Jute seeds are so small so it is required, land should well cultivate and soil should soft in nature. When plants are 15 to 20 cm tall some are removed to give chance others grow properly. Fertilizer also be used in jute growing land, it increases 4 to 10 tones of producing jute fiber in each acre.  Urea, TSP and MP fertilizer you can use respectively 22.5kgs, 11kgs and 20 kgs for  each acre.

Insects and pesticides attack jute fibers and Defects of Jute Fiber

During growing period jute may attack by two dozens of different insects and pests which affect jute production and cause of jute fiber defects. Jute hairy caterpilla, Jute hairy caterpillar, Jute semilooper, Jute stem weevil, Field cricket, Yellow mite and Indigo caterpillar are the most common insects of jute plant, most of them attack on leaves and stem of jute plant.

Due to many reason jute fiber fall under defects finally when it would be processed. The common jute fiber defects are Rooty fibers, Speeky fibers, Croppy fibers, Sticky fibers, knotty fibers, Dead fibers, Hunka, Weak fibers, Mossy fibers, Heart damage and Exterior damage.

Products of Jute

Jute is an affordable fiber from which most attractive a great variety of products being produced. It puts of major use of household, domestic and decorative purposes like ropes, bags, blanket, towine yarn, wall mats etc. Now it is used to produce CBC yarn and Jutex yarn by blending with cotton fiber. Now a days green jute is used to produce paper in paper industry.