Lang
A severe shortage of mature coconuts has pushed Bangladesh's coconut oil milling industry in Bagerhat to the brink of collapse, forcing most mills to remain shuttered for months and displacing at least 1,700 workers, industry sources have reported.
Of the 40 coconut oil mills that once operated in Bagerhat town, including 20 located inside the Bagerhat BSCIC Industrial Estate, only 13 remain in business today, and 11 of those stay locked for most of the time, according to estate officials and mill owners.
A recent site visit found only Roni Coconut Oil Mill in active operation. Two mills within the estate have shut down permanently over the past five years.
Masud Rana, owner of Roni Coconut Oil Mill, outlined the operating model: mills do not purchase coconuts directly from farmers. Instead, traders supply the raw material, the mills process it, and payment is made to the traders based on the volume of oil extracted.
Mr Rana noted that coconut oil, which cost between Tk 400 and Tk 500 per kilogramme in 2019, now fetches Tk 800 to Tk 900, climbing to Tk 1,100 during the winter months.
The price escalation traces back to the supply of raw material. Coconut traders supplying the mills paid Tk 125 for a pair of mature coconuts before the pandemic; the same pair now costs Tk 250, according to Babu Ghosh, a trader from Kachua.
'Since green coconuts are more profitable and have higher demand, there are hardly enough mature coconuts in the wholesale markets,' Mr Ghosh explained.
The trend appears paradoxical given that Bagerhat's fruit-bearing coconut tree population actually grew from approximately 950,000 in 2021-22 to 1.1 million today, said Md Sharif Sardar, industrial estate officer of Bagerhat BSCIC.
However, farmers are increasingly harvesting coconuts while they are still green, both to serve the lucrative tender coconut water market and to mitigate losses from pests and rodents that attack mature crops.
Mill owner Jibon Kumar Saha said the raw material shortage has persisted for five to seven years. Importing coconuts from India's Kerala state or from Sri Lanka, he added, is prohibitively expensive.
His mill had only recently reopened after nearly three months of idleness, with no certainty about how long it would continue to operate.
The industry's decline extends beyond the supply side. The sector, which once employed more than 2,000 workers and produced 25 to 30 tonnes of oil daily two decades ago, has also suffered from declining demand for coconut oil since 2006, when packaged edible oils became widely available in Bangladesh.
Worker Sudeb Das said his mill now runs a single machine instead of three, opening only when coconuts are available. He takes outside work whenever the mill is shut.
Established in 1996 on 19.30 acres along the Bhairab river, the BSCIC estate now hosts 52 industrial units spread across 119 plots.
Source: The Daily Star