Turning waste into value: Banana yarn opens new avenues for rural women

Lakhimpur Kheri When Poonam Devi, president of Ma Saraswati self-help group (SHG) of Samaisa village under Isanagar block received a letter of intent from a Gujarat-based Altmat company for procuring their homemade banana fibre a few weeks back, her face lit up with joy

Lakhimpur Kheri When Poonam Devi, president of Ma Saraswati self-help group (SHG) of Samaisa village under Isanagar block received a letter of intent from a Gujarat-based Altmat company for procuring their homemade banana fibre a few weeks back, her face lit up with joy.

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In the letter, the company had not only placed an order for 200 kg of extracted fibre from banana stalks at Rs. 110 to Rs. 150 per kg but assured to build a long-term relationship with the self-help group.

The letter of intent opened up new opportunities of livelihood for the 40 women of the SHG,, including Poonam Devi.

Isanagar is located between the Ghaghra and Sharda rivers where floods and erosions are routine and residents have limited sources of livelihood.

Apart from traditional crops, the block is also famous for banana farming, which drew attention of Kheri chief development officer (CDO) Arvind Singh, who has earned repute for his innovative and successful projects like Operation Kavach, Operation Chaturbhuj and Operation Mamta etc.

According to Singh, banana farming always left huge stock of banana stems as wastage after harvesting of the fruits.

Singh told Hindustan Times that banana stem could be used for extracting fine quality fibre to be used in textile industry if properly processed and it could also add to the income of the rural womenfolk.

“An idea to set up fibre extraction unit in Samaisa village hit me which would not only solve the banana stem wastage problem but employ dozens of women, providing them additional source of income,” he added.

“We started a pilot project of extracting fibre from banana stems, engaging Ma Saraswati self-help group in December 2020,” CDO Arvind Singh said.

He said,, “Required equipments for extraction were procured from Gujarat and necessary training was imparted to the women.”

The fibre extracted from banana stems was sent to some companies for quality check and its saleability.

“Our efforts yielded results when Altmat company of Gujarat expressed its willingness to procure 200 kg of banana yarn extracted by the SHG and provided a token money of ₹21,,000,” he said.

The CDO informed that several other companies had also placed orders for the yarn.

The authorities have decided to replicate the project in other blocks of the district if successful.

According to SHG women, extraction of banana yarn or fibre from the stem yielded Rs. 100 per kg of yarn. Each SHG member can extract four to six kg of yarn per day which means income of Rs. 400 to ₹600 per day.