The fading lustre of Faridpur's date palm jaggery
As trees die out and ‘gachis’ lose motivation due to low demand, the famous delicacy might be on its way to disappearing for good
Ikramur Rahman, a student of Cumilla University, recently went to his village in Faridpur for the winter vacation.
Visits during this season always remind him of his colourful childhood days. Back then, winter was synonymous with sweet date palm sap in the mornings and delicious pitha-payesh made of date palm jaggery in the afternoons.
Faridpur, surrounded by the Padma and Ariyal Kha Rivers, is famous for date palm jaggery. And winters were always the busy season for 'gachis'.
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However, things have changed.
The scene of gachis bringing down pots of date palm saps or boys and girls waiting in the morning to drink the raw sap has faded into memory. Date palm sap is no longer widely available in Ikramur's village or the surrounding villages.
In recent days, date palm trees have become a rarity even in the remote villages of Faridpur. So, is this tradition lost altogether or is there some hope?
In search of authentic jaggery
Brajen Das has been selling jaggery for 45 years – a business he inherited from his father. Although he sells sugarcane jaggery throughout the year, he collects quite a lot of date palm jaggery of various qualities during the winter. The old man has a store in the Chawkbazar market of Faridpur city.
Apart from him, there are eight or nine other sellers here, sitting with baskets full of different kinds of jaggery.
The colours of jaggery differ as well; some are reddish, some are pale and some are brown. But which of these are 'authentic' date palm jaggery?
Das said that authentic jaggery is hardly available in the market anymore. They collect palm jaggery mixed with sugar or sugarcane jaggery from different parts of the country. The gachis also do not show much interest in making authentic jaggery anymore.
Other traders in the city also agreed with Brajen. Subhash Saha, a seller, said that they do not get enough jaggery in Faridpur. They have to collect jaggery from Kanaipur, Magura, Jessore, Jhenaidah or Rajshahi. According to him, the jaggery of this region does not even meet the needs of the people in Faridpur. This made me ask, is the situation similar in the villages?
The supply of jaggery is quite good in the Kaulibera market in Bhanga upazila. But upon inquiry, it turned out that most of this jaggery here is from Jashore and Rajshahi, and needless to say, mixed with sugar.
Those who require authentic jaggery, directly go and collect it from remote villages. However, many farmers complain that the traders do not collect jaggery from them because the price is relatively high.
On the other hand, the sellers say that the buyers, in the crowd of adulterated jaggery, do not trust the authentic produce and are reluctant to pay a higher price.
We met gachi Abdul Jabbar as we travelled to the villages of Faridpur in search of authentic jaggery. He brought down eight to 10 pots of saps after climbing 20 trees. After boiling that sap, however, only two kilograms of jaggery was obtained. And the demand for authentic jaggery was so high – from what seems like a niche customer base – that it was sold out immediately at a high price.
According to Abdul, many people collect authentic produce by contacting the local gachis. He also said that many people have set up online businesses by collecting jaggery from their village.
Rafiqul Islam, director general of the Department of Agricultural Extension, Faridpur, echoes the same sentiment. According to this agriculturist, gachis are collecting sap from one lakh date palm trees in this district. Although cheap adulterated jaggery is overflowing the markets from outside, there are ways to obtain authentic jaggery from Faridpur.
In the 'mixed with sugar' business
Ibrahim Howladar, a jaggery seller at Kaulibera market, collected 10 kg of authentic jaggery from gachis. But he still could not sell it. He said, buyers come and look for cheap jaggery. So there is no profit in bringing authentic jaggery at a high price.
Gachi Shahin Matubbar has the same problem. He lamented, "No one buys good jaggery in the market, they say it's full of sugar. They buy bad jaggery from far away for Tk150 per kg but accuse us of adding sugar to jaggery. If they go away [from us] then what is the point of making authentic jaggery?"
Shahin added, "Those who sell jaggery for Tk150, buy it at Tk100.
I scrape trees all day. Yesterday I scraped 21 trees but got only three pots of sap which yielded only one kg of jaggery. I can't make enough to pay even a farmer. My wife boiled the sap… my jaggery costs around Tk800 [per kg], but no one would buy it even if I ask for Tk500."
According to Zamir Munsi, a seller at the upazila's Baliahati market, jaggery from Jashore and Rajshahi is made in the factory. So, while their prices are low, the profit is high.
If the colour of the jaggery is good, buyers are attracted, then the price of this jaggery reaches Tk180 to Tk200. Sugarcane-mixed date jaggery of Rajshahi is available in the market here for around Tk220 and Tk250. However, jaggery made by local gachis costs around Tk500.
Matubbar Karim, a student at the philosophy department of Government Rajendra College, said that although authentic jaggery is available in rural areas, low-income people cannot buy it at such a high price. "If a day labourer buys one kilogram of jaggery with his daily earnings, how will he buy anything else?"
A rarity in Dhaka too
Jaggery of various kinds is sold in large quantities in Dhaka's Karwan Bazar. From here, jaggery goes to other markets in Dhaka. But sellers say there is no such thing as authentic jaggery.
Shopkeeper Mohammad Hanif said, "You will not find authentic jaggery anywhere in Dhaka. There will be sugar in jaggery. If you don't give sugar, the jaggery doesn't solidify."
Noor Mohammad, another Karwan Bazar seller, said, "What comes from Faridpur and is sold at Tk1,200 per kg, not everyone buys that. The cheap jaggery of Rajshahi and Jashore are sold more in the market."
The lowest quality jaggery is sold at the price of Tk150 in Karwan Bazar. The price of better quality jaggery is between Tk200 and Tk300.
The economics of potential extinction
Many areas of Faridpur are now also devoid of palm trees due to the cutting of hundreds of trees every year. The disappearance of date palm trees is believed to be responsible for the gradual disappearance of sap and jaggery.
Moreover, it is laborious and risky to cut the trunk of the palm tree and nurture it to a stage suitable for producing sap. Mohammad Shahin Matubbar, a gardener of Faridpur's Bhangadia village, said when the old gachis die, no one wants to do the labour-intensive work of scraping trees.
"People don't want to work so hard now. If you do other work, you can earn Tk500 a shift," he added.
He also thinks that the death of trees is the reason for the loss of jaggery, blaming some greedy gachis and tree owners. "Some trees are cut too much, some die in the fog, some die after being struck by lightning. No one plants new trees. In the past, the trees would sprout from the root of the other trees. Now the land is cultivated so the trees cannot grow."
Shahin also pointed out how 300-400 trees had been cut to build a temple.
Agriculture Officer Rafiqul Islam said that although the number of palm trees in the district is about four lakh, the sap is collected from only one lakh trees due to a lack of gachis. According to him, around 20,000 kg of jaggery is produced here daily. He said this amount of jaggery production will continue for about two months in the winter season. So, he is optimistic.
Will the next generation be deprived of Faridpur's jaggery?
"If asked, many cannot say when they last had date palm sap. And the next generation may hear about this [Faridpur's jaggery] like a fairy tale. No one will know about gachis and the instruments used in scraping date palm sap. It doesn't look like the date palm sap would last long," explained Matubbar Karim, a philosophy student at the Government Rajendra College.
However, Rafiqul Islam remains hopeful. He said although many people avoided date jaggery, due to fear of the Nipah virus, a new generation of entrepreneurs has started commercial production by taking measures to prevent bats or other animals from spoiling the juice.
"Faridpur date palm jaggery will once again spread throughout the country and will be appreciated everywhere," remarked Rafiqul.
