In a world obsessed with “start-up culture,” venture capital, and high-tech labs, a quiet woman in rural Faridpur has achieved something far more radical, she turned cattle grass into jaggery.
Yes, jaggery — that rustic, golden sweetness born from boiling cane juice — is now flowing from blades of Napier grass in the backyard of Khadiza Begum, a mother of three, in Alfadanga of Faridpur. What began as an idle observation has turned into a story of invention, resilience, and rural entrepreneurship that is as bold as it is beautiful.
The spark in the grass
Khadiza’s story started not in a boardroom, but in her small yard, where she grew Napier grass for her cattle. One day, as she watched her husband, Mohammad Saiful Islam, a lower grade employee at the Rural Electrification Boad, chopping the thick stems, a question struck her: “If sugarcane holds juice, why not this grass?”
Curiosity turned into experimentation. She crushed a few stalks, and to her astonishment, sweet juice trickled out. That simple discovery – born of observation, not opportunity – was the beginning of a transformation.
Soon, she began cultivating Napier grass, a red-tinged, sugarcane-like variety that grows up to eight feet tall. On just 10 decimals of land (less than a tenth of an acre), she started extracting juice, boiling it with care, and condensing it into jaggery.
The result was extraordinary: a mineral-rich, subtly salty sweetener that looked, smelled, and tasted almost identical to sugarcane jaggery, but made entirely from grass.
From experiment to enterprise
With each batch, Khadiza refined her method. From 60 grass plants yielding 6-7 kilograms of juice, she could produce one kilogram of jaggery fetching Tk 400 per kilo in the local market. Her daily earnings soon reached Tk 1,300 from jaggery and grass sales alone.
On her adjoining acre of land, she diversified her crops — papaya, grapes, apples, even Saudi date palms — adding another Tk 1,500 to her daily income.
“People laughed at me at first,” she says with quiet confidence. “They said I was wasting time. Now, they come to learn from me.”
Her husband, once sceptical, has become her business partner. “It costs about Tk 6,000 to produce the jaggery,” says Mohammad Saiful Islam, who works for the rural electricity board. “We can sell it for Tk 15,000. It’s pure, and people love the taste.”
Sweet recognition, bitter bureaucracy
Customers agree — Khadiza’s jaggery is pure, natural, and delicious. “If no one told you, you’d never guess it’s made from grass,” says regular buyer Farzana Akhter.
But official recognition hasn’t caught up with her innovation. The Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) still has no framework for certifying jaggery made from anything other than sugarcane.
Deputy Director Md Kamal Hossain admits, “Grass-based jaggery falls into a grey area. There’s no licensing category yet. But testing can be done at the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) in Dhaka.”
Khadiza and her husband have already applied for BSTI testing, hoping certification will open doors to national markets — and perhaps export.
Turning sweetness into a movement
Local agricultural officials see her as a catalyst for rural innovation. “She’s not just farming,” says Upazila Agriculture Officer Tushar Saha. “She’s innovating. This is exactly the kind of local ingenuity that can transform the rural economy.”
Her work is already inspiring neighbouring women to try their hands at small-scale agro-processing. For them, Khadiza represents something more powerful than profit — proof that innovation doesn’t belong only to men, machines, or metropolitan minds.
Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer Md Niaz Mustafi Chowdhury told Jago News, “Nutritious plant-based products are beneficial for the human body. Provided the jaggery is produced from grass juice using proper methods—and the grass is grown without toxic pesticides or growth hormones—it is unlikely to pose any harm to human health.”
From survival to sweet success
Khadiza Begum’s journey is a living case study in grassroots innovation — literally and figuratively. She had no capital, no mentors, and no machinery. All she had was curiosity, a patch of land, and the courage to experiment.
From that unlikely mix came a product that challenges traditional notions of what can be grown, processed, and monetised in rural Bangladesh.
She didn’t just make jaggery from grass.
She made hope from hardship.
The new sweet economy
As Bangladesh looks to strengthen its SME sector, stories like Khadiza’s show where the real potential lies — not in imported technology or urban incubation hubs, but in the untapped genius of rural women who see possibilities where others see problems.
Her jaggery is more than a sweetener; it’s a statement — that innovation can germinate in the humblest soil, and that entrepreneurship can begin with a blade of grass and a bold idea.
And somewhere in Alfadanga, under the warm Faridpur sun, the next batch of grass juice simmers in a pot — thickening, darkening, sweetening — just like the story of a woman who dared to imagine sweetness in struggle.