Date tree growers in Sirajganj are now busy making jaggery. They are making jaggery from date juice. Jaggery makers in Tarash upazila seems busy from morning till night in all the activities like removing the juice from the tree, making firewood, making jaggery and molding these.
Along with the jaggery makers of Tarash, people of different areas of Pabna, Natore and Rajshahi come to Tarash in winter season and make jaggery by leasing the trees of the household.
Thick and hard jaggery is made by heating the date juice. Although molasses and granular molasses are made from date juice, food lovers prefer jaggery to make pies on their backs in winter.
Majid, Khairul and Muharram of Bagha upazila of Rajshahi are jointly taking care of date palms, collecting juice and making jaggery in Dhamaich village of Saguna union of Tarash in Sirajganj. Moinul said that each of them has been making jaggery for about fifteen years. They are doing this from the house of Abu Hasim Khokon, a lecturer in Dhamaich village. They collected juice from 320 date palms of about 40 households. In turn, they collect sap from 150 trees every day. One by one, they can prepare 50 trees.
From noon to about 4 o'clock, he ties ropes to collect juice from the trees. After that, he works to collect fuel till 7 pm. He wakes up at 3 am and gets busy collecting juice. At around 8 in the morning, he squeezes the juice and put it in big pots for burning.After burning for three hours, the juice turns red. During this time, the concentration of the juice increases. When one side of the pot is relatively low, the red thick juice goes to one side of the four. The molasses seeds are made by rubbing a bamboo sticks on the high side. Then jaggery makers mix it with all the red juice and shake that again for a few minutes to increase the concentration of molasses. At this time, molasses becomes quite thick. Jaggery is made by pouring this thick liquid molasses in molds of different sizes.
At present, jaggery is being sold at Tk 110 per kg wholesale and tK 150 per kg retail. Jaggery makers in the area said that in the beginning of fall, they start the work of clearing the date palm trees and making them suitable for collecting juice. The collection of juice starts from the beginning of winter. The work of collecting juice goes on till end of winter. Tree owners have to pay 2 to 3 kg of jaggery per year for each tree. As fuel prices have risen and prices of other accessories have also gone up, it is getting hard to get proper profit from making jaggery. In all, the wages of workers are 400 to 500 Tk per day.
Regarding date jaggery, Tarash Upazila Agriculture Officer, agronomist Lutfunnahar Luna said that jaggery enhances the energy of enzymes that help in digestion, can reduce iron deficiency, maintains hormonal balance in the body and helps to keep the body warm. However, eating too much jaggery can lead to weight gain, high blood sugar levels, not producing jaggery in a healthy environment, which
can lead to bacterial infections, and eating freshly made molasses can cause diarrhea.
