Date-gurh becomes boon for many Rajshahi people

RAJSHAHI, Jan 07 (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 0.1 million 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 0.8 million date trees in the district producing around 8,000 tonnes of molasses valued at around Tk 600 million every season.

There are highest number of 0.39 million trees in Charghat Upazila followed by 0.29 million 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 Tk 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 Tk 10 million.

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 Tk 60 per kilogram.

Mohsin Ali, a retailer at the same market, said he sold molasses at Tk 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.