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Plastic tools to farmers' rescue

Suman Saha
Visitors may be surprised to see a real fruit-laden banana tree with a plastic cover at a stall at a plastic fair that began on Wednesday at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre.
They will also see a number of plastic-made agricultural instruments on display: drum seeder, pesticide spray machine, drip irrigation, AWD (alternate wetting and drying) pipe, hatchery tray and seed bed.
Some other plastic products such as fish and fruit crate, cage culture, hand net, hosepipe, water tray, egg cage, flower tub, milk can and sponge net were also at the exhibition.
They show the ways in which the country's plastic product manufacturers can facilitate the vibrant agricultural sector.
"Plastic goods have multiple uses in the agricultural sector," said Abdur Rouf, a monitoring officer of GMARK Consulting Ltd, anNGO.
“They can be used for both the pre-harvesting and postharvesting periods. Moreover, they lead to better produces and minimal post-harvest losses."
For example, a farmer can cut his irrigation costs by 25 percent by using AWD pipes, which are
perforated plastic pipes to monitor the level of the water table after irrigation.
A banana cultivator will also get a better quality produce if they use plastic loom covers, which negate the need for pesticides, said Jotirmoy Mazumdar Mithu, business consultant of GMARK Con-
sulting.
GMARK Consulting, a nongovernment organisation, is implementing an agro-packaging project launched by Katalyst, a market development project funded by UKAID, SDC, CIDA and EKN.
They are working as the match-
maker between farmers and agriinstrument suppliers.
In Bangladesh, around 15 percent vegetables worth around Tk 6180 million are wasted every year due to improper packaging, according to a study by Katalyst and GMark.
“The packaging and transportation system that are currently employed are often characterised by weak forms and shapes, low durability, inappropriate materials, rough and patchy surfaces,” Rouf said.
Farmers and intermediaries are unaware of the benefits of using improved packaging and rely heavily on traditional methods of packaging, such as bamboo baskets and gunny sacks, which account for 80 percent of the packaging used by the sector, he said.
The annual demands for packaging materials by the sector, according to the Katalyst-GMark study, are: gunny sacks 7.26 million pieces, worth Tk 145 million; plastic sacks 15.77 million pieces, worth Tk 78.2 million; and bamboo baskets 6.32 million pieces, worth Tk 253 million.
A farmer can save up to 35 percent transport wastage cost for tomatoes and 15 percent for fishes by using plastic crates, Rouf said.
“But the share of plastic
crates in the agricultural packaging market is only 1.5 percent,” he added.
Typically, a farmer has to bear a 10 percentage wastage cost due to transporting vegetables in bamboo crates, while it is only 0.01 percent for plastic crates, he said.
The official also said that fishermen and traders can minimise fish wastage significantly if they use improved packaging solutions like leak- and heatproof plastic crates and cork sheet boxes.
Nearly 9 percent fish wastage occurs during transportation and nearly 10 percent during trading.
The total wastage annually is approximately 244,001 tonnes, worth TK 21.30 billion, said the Katalyst-GMark Study.
Currently, GMARK is implementing the project in 29 districts in collaboration with two plastic companies -- Bengal Polymer Wares Ltd and Nilkamal Padma Plastic Pvt Ltd.
The agro-packaging project has directly benefited around 18,000 farmers in the past year, Rouf said.