RAJSHAHI, Jan 6, 2019 (BSS) – With advent of winter season, date juice
collection along with processing gurh (molasses) has become vibrant
everywhere in the region, generating employment opportunities for more than
one lakh people.
The date-tree farmers, locally known as ‘gachhis’, are passing busy times
in collecting date-juice and processing molasses at present.
Local villagers said three upazilas like Charghat, Bagha and Puthiya in
Rajshahi district are famous for date-molasses. The trading of date-molasses
is going on in full swing as winter approaches its gravity.
Produced molasses by the farmers in the three upazilas are being exported
to many foreign countries escalating the rural economy.
Shamsul Haque, Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension
(DAE), says there are more than eight lakh date trees in the district
producing around 8,000 tonnes of molasses valued at around Taka 60 crore
every season.
There are highest number of 3.96 lakh trees in Charghat Upazila followed by
2.99 lakh in Bagha Upazila and 85,000 in Puthiya Upazila.
There are also many other date trees on road side, railway tracks and on
fallow lands and homesteads while date-molasses are produced commercially
here.
Haque said the farmers collect the juice accumulated in the clay pot over
night. They evaporate the juice by heating next morning to make solid (Patali
gurh) or thick-slurry (Jhola gurh).
He said a farmer can produce 20 to 25 kg of molasses from a single date-
tree in a season. As there is no need of extra care of the trees, so it may
be a very profitable business.
He added that regular in-taking of sugar or molasses with rice and other
nutritious foods is very essential for human especially the children for
developing their merit.
Firoj Ali, a date juice harvester of Gaigirpara village under Puthiya
Upazila, said he has no any date tree for his own. Every season, he manages
permission of collecting juice of 120 trees of others at a cost of Taka 175.
Ali processed around 25 kilograms of molasses from the collected juice
every day. He meets his annual family needs with getting profit doing the
seasonal molasses business.
Suman Sarker, a molasses wholesaler at Jhalmalia Hat in the same upazila,
said sell volume of molasses on every hat-day is more than Taka one crore.
He says blacksmiths are busy making sharp crescent shaped machetes that are
used in cleaning and peeling off layers from the neck of date tree for
extraction of juice.
Potters are struggling to supply specially designed small earthen pots for
collection of juice and big ones for boiling the juice to produce molasses,
which are sold in markets all over Bangladesh through traders.
Suman Sarker hoped that the business will play a vital role to change the
socio-economic picture of the whole region if everybody comes forward to
plant the trees in fallow land.
Trader Anwar Hossain, who comes to Bagha Bazar from Barishal every year to
purchase molasses, told the journalists he purchased 40 mounds of molasses at
Taka 60 per kilogram.
Mohsin Ali, a retailer at the same market, said he sold molasses at Taka 65
per kilogram last week and the retail price is now on downtrend with rising
of production.
He said the farmers of the upazila send molasses to different areas of the
country including the capital every year. If they can expand the business,
they would achieve huge profit and change their socio-economic conditions.