Jute Industry in Bangladesh  Jute Industry in Bangladesh is an industry that is historically and culturally important that once was the biggest industry in the region but has declined since then. Jute was historically a major export item of Bangladesh but has declined since the 1970s. Exports have fallen as other countries grew jute and alternate products like plastic and hemp found more widespread use. Bangladesh produces, as of 2018, 33 percent of the total worldwide production of jute. Historically jute produced in Bengal was made into rope and clothes using local handlooms. During the Napoleonic wars (1803-1815) in Europe the supply of Russian flax linen to mills in Dundee, Scotland. The British needed a new source and jute was touted as a potential alternate to Russian flax. The problem with manufacturing jute fabrics in industrial mills was that Jute fabric was too course for the machines. The firm of Balfour and Melville developed a process to weaken the fabric by using water and whale fat. In 1838, Dundee mills received an order to manufacture sacks for sugar plantations in Dutch controlled Java. They produced jute burlap sacks for the order using the Balfour and Melville method. This generated demand and promoted jute from Bengal. Demand for jute further increased following the Crimean War (1853-1856). In 1873, the British Raj formed a commission with led by HC Kerr to investigate the jute industry and jute cultivation in Bengal. Report on the Cultivation of, and Trade in, Jute in Bengal was published in 1877. The report suggested that large scale jute cultivation began in the 1840s in the Bengal region. George Auckland, along with a Bengali partner, Shyamsunder Sen, established the first jute mill in the region 1855 in Rishra on the banks of the Hooghly River. The American Civil War had made it necessary to find an alternate fabric source. Jute was a good alternate as it was relatively cheaper and was sourced from a British colony, Bengal Presidency of British India. Jute mills were opened around Kolkata which rapidly grew in numbers in the later half of the 19th century. In 1882, there were 18 mills which had increased to 51 by 1901 and employed 10 thousand workers. The majority of the jute manufactured in the mills were exported to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. The Jute industry had become the second largest industry in British India after the cotton industry and Kolkata became the centre of the jute trade.