When a handful of women of Sughai Jamalpur, Siduari, Panapur Langa and Dighi villages in Vaishali district, known for producing a wide variety of bananas, hit upon the idea of producing household items from banana trunks, many eyebrows were raised.
These women are making a variety of household items from the fibre extracted from banana trunks, from flower baskets, wall hangings, tablemats, chappals, handbags and rakhis.
"Their enterprise has not only brought kudos to these women but also transformed the living standards of their families," says Pancham Kumar Singh, a scientist at the Banana Research Institute, Hariharpur, who is also the director of Vaishali district Krishi Vigyan Kendra.
"These women tried to sell household items manufactured by them in the local market but there were few takers," Singh says recalling how their endeavour bore fruit after the Banana research institute stepped in to extend help.
Singh says the banana growers were a happy lot as apart from the fruit, which fetches them Rs 50 a bunch, they were also selling the felled trees for Rs 5 a piece.
"Earlier, even dumping the banana trees was a major problem for them, but now, the farmers are making the most of the situation by selling those to the women engaged in extracting fibre," he says.
A fibre-extracting machine with the capacity to extract 25 kgs of fibre a day was bought at a cost of Rs 25,000 from Hyderabad and some women were imparted training.
During the past one year the institute trained over 1500 people in banana fibre extraction, Singh says adding the institute helped some cultivators in purchasing such machines with financing from banks.
He said the institute has opened a procurement centre at Hajipur where banana fibre was being bought from the farmers at prices ranging between Rs 60 and Rs 100 per kg depending on the quality of the product.
Singh said the fibre was being sold to silk manufacturers of Varanasi, Jaipur and Bhagalpur where the banana fibre was mixed with silk fibre to produce high quality cloth, which was even exported to foreign countries.
Singh said a Horticulture and Agriculture Techonolgy Transfer Extension Core Committee has been constituted with the Vaishali district magistrate as its chairman to propagate efforts of the people of Vaishali, particularly women.
"If all goes well we will succeed in our endeavour to provide the fibre extraction business the status of an industry," he said.
"We are indebted to the research institute for imparting training in fibre extraction and are thinking of going for extraction of fibre from waste banana trunks in a big way as it is a lucrative business," says Sunil Rai of Sheetal Bhakruhar village and Shyam Kishore Thakur of Alwalpur village who are banana farmers.
