India - Grain Packaging Issues Jute or Plastic?

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Jute Packaging Materials versus Plastic High density polyethylene [HDPE] gunny Bags

This news feature focuses on the official guidelines on the usage of packing material for consequent benefit for very poor people of India in Bihar and Bengal states where a large number of families depend on Jute fiber cultivation and handling.

A Jute bag of 95 Kgs or about 210 pounds size costs about 45 cents whereas the plastic bag cost about half the price. Jute bags are bio-degradable, hence eco friendly and extremely good for wheat and many other crops. But for rice they may not prove to be very good as Jute bagged stuff requier extra fumigation. Or may be this is a lame argument. We do not know the reality but the following feature will inform you about the debate.

What is your opinion?


Foodgrains to be sold only in jute bags

The Left party in the current congress party led government has packed in quite a punch, as it has stopped the Centre from sacking gunny bags.

Revoking a decision by the Vajpayee government, the Centre has now made it mandatory for all foodgrains and at least 90% of the sugar distributed and
sold in the domestic markets to be packed only in jute bags.In other words,
instead of the cheaper and more resilient polypropyelene (PP) bags, local
millers, processors and even wholesalers will now have to switch to jute
bags. Hence, sales of companies producing PP bags are likely to fall.

More importantly, even the popular 15-kg consumer packs of cleaned wheat and
rice, especially basmati and sugar will now have to be retailed by grocers
and supermarkets in jute bags only.The Left had accused the NDA government
of trying to favour large industrial houses by reducing the reservation for
gunny bags to an all-time low. CPI(Marxist) general secretary Harkishan Singh
Surjeet had even complained to the Election Commission in April that it was
a violation of the poll code of conduct.FCI alone buys jute bags worth Rs
300 crore annually, and coupled with purchases by state procurement
agencies, the public sector spends almost Rs 500 crore on jute bags. With a
125m tonne rice crop ready for harvest this month, and sugar and wheat round
the corner, the demand for jute bags from both FCI and private traders is
expected to spiral significantly.In April, the NDA government had diluted
the minimum reservation for jute packaging to only 60% for foodgrains and
50% for sugar after the Supreme Court vacated a stay on reducing the minimum
quantity specified for jute under the Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory
Use in Packing Commodities) Act, 1987.

But the move fell foul of the Left parties. In a letter to the Chief
Election Commissioner, TS Krishnamurthy, Mr Surjeet said, "This order will
hit the jute industry employing 2.5 lakh workers and 40 lakh jute growers,
mostly in West Bengal and Bihar.

On the other hand, this order will bring huge business benefits to non-jute
packaging industry, engaged in the production of synthetic material, which
has been lobbying hard for a long time with the government/political parties
for such a favour. We strongly feel that such an executive order promising
financial bonanza in terms of enhanced packaging order to a particular
industrial lobby at a time when the election process is in full swing, is
flagrant violation of Model Code of Conduct by the party in power at the
Centre."

But though jute farmers benefit, gunny bags are expensive. The cost of a
jute bag is around Rs 20 for 95-kg bag size, whereas the cost of a HDPE bag
is virtually half. As HDPE bags also last longer, they are preferred over jute.

"It is true that HDPE bags are not a good option for storing wheat because they don't breathe but for rice they are the best option. Jute bags for rice
needs very heavy fumigation, which is not eco-friendly," say sources.

Foodgrains are packed in 'B' twill jute bags and sugar in 'A' twill bags.
Jute bags are usually traded in bales. One bale of 'B' twill bags of normal
size usually contains 300 number of bags.Usually, each jute bag undergoes 10
handlings from the stage of procurement to its final stage of distribution.
For example, the entry of a gunny bag in FCI's operations starts at the time
of procurement in a mandi. At this stage, foodgrains are filled, bagged,
stitched manually or by machines, loaded into trucks, transported, unloaded
and stacked.As foodgrain handling is largely manual, the handling labour
takes support of 6-inch hooks to lift the bags. Due to multiple use of hooks
at each handling, leakages, bursting, spillages are frequent. No wonder then
that FCI's percentage of transit shortages is almost three times of the
storage shortages.

"The more the number of times a bag is handled, greater is the chance of its
resulting into higher shortage of foodgrain in transit. A bag is slid down
from a height of 16 ft from the ground at the time of de-stacking manually
and undergoes various modes of transport. During such handling not only the
use of hooks but even sometimes truck floor edges, cuts or the edges,
corners, panel cuts in the wagons, dumping of bags from some height lead to
serious spillages," say experts. When a bag is stored in CAP storage, due to
its exposure to open climate, jute bags burst.

But jute bag manufacturers differ. "Jute is bio-degradable whereas
synthetics are not environmental-friendly. The disposal of unserviceable
jute bag is not as big a problem as may be for synthetic bags. A study has
shown that jute bags are highly ideal containers for foodgrains as compared to HDPE bags," they point out.