Date palm jaggery business picks up in Natore

As the winter progresses and the harvest of new winter crops begins in the rural Bangladesh, almost every households become busy with the traditional practice of making winter cakes or “pitha-puli”.

The most sought-after element in making winter cases is date palm Jaggery, which is available in abundance in the winter. This season, the market of date palm jaggery, locally known as khejurer patali gur, in Natore is seeing a trade of around Tk 2 crore every day. However, the farmers who produce jaggery are not entirely happy with the prices of their products.

Every winter, date juice extractors, locally known as gachhis, collect date juice, condense the juice by heating it and make date palm jaggery. Later, they sell the jaggery in Natore’s Lalpur, Bonpara, Sadar, and Singra Haats (weekly market).

During a recent visit to the Lalpur Haat, The Business Post found that the market was buzzing with jaggery sellers and buyers since dawn.

Most of the sellers came from Durgapur, Puthia, Bagha, and Charghat. Some of them collect date juice from their trees while some take date trees of other people on lease.

Bonpara haat is arranged twice a week, on Saturday and Tuesday. The wholesalers buy jaggery from there and then sell those in different parts of the country. Moreover, date jaggery is also exported.

On the days when Bonpara haat is open, some 100-150 tonnes of jaggery reach there every day. Traders from all over the country buy 10 to 15 truck-loads of jaggery from this market and transport it across the country, said Iqbal Hossain, a wholesaler.

Jillur Rahman, a wholesaler at Lalpur Haat, told The Business Post that the peak season for date palm jaggery is November to March. He said that the demand, price, production, and supply are relatively higher during this timeline.

He said that he buys around 200 to 400 maunds of jaggery per day. One kilogram of jaggery sells for Tk 80 to Tk 82. Twenty more wholesalers are currently handling the trade of the haat.

Abdul Hakim, a trader from Dhaka’s Dohar area, who came to the area for the distinctive jaggery, said he buys around 2,000 to 2,500 maunds of the food item each day and sells it to traders across the country.

Bablu, a gachhi from the Durduria area of Lalpur, said he collects juices from around 250 date palm trees every year. “If we collect the juice from 150 trees, we can make 60 to 70 kilogrammes of jaggery. I earn Tk 1,000 to Tk 1,500 every day.”

He further mentioned that after paying all his costs, he made a profit of Tk 50,000 every winter.

Jillur Rahman, a wholesaler of the Lalpur market, said traders do not only buy date palm jaggery from the local markets of Natore, but various markets of Rajshahi’s Bagha, Baneshwar, Charghat. Every day at least 20 trucks load of date palm jaggery worth Tk 2 crore get transported across the country from Natore, said Jillur.

Mahmudul Faruque, deputy director of Natore DAE, said the demand for Natore’s date palm jaggery is much higher because of its good quality. It is organically made and relatively sweeter in taste. “The traders, makers of date palm jaggery, are happy with the trade of date palm jaggery this year. We are expecting that they will make profits,” he said.