Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
The recently concluded two-day ‘Jaggery festival’ in the Uttar Pradesh capital witnessed new opportunities, innovations and hopes for a lucrative future for the jaggery producers who forged direct linkages with the market.
One of the sugarcane traders from Ayodhya, Shivmohan Pandey (24) told Gaon Connection that for the jaggery stock that took at least two months to be cleared off the shelves, here at the festival, it got sold in the two days festival on March 7-8. Pandey was happy to share that this festival connected him to patrons that have assured him of purchases in the future as well.
Also Read: UP govt organises event to promote jaggery industry, raise awareness about its health benefits
Pandey, who hustles between farming and trading his produce, hails from Pilkhava village in the Ayodhya district. “This trade-festival is a good initiative for organic farmers like me. We got encouraging responses from the people in these two days. In this gud festival, most of the cane farmers that have participated are the ones who grow sugarcane organically. But it is practically not feasible for our organic produce to compete with the regular sugarcane industry. The gud mahotsav (jaggery festival) came up as a ray of hope for farmers like us,” Pandey told Gaon Connection.
With an aim to promote the gud (jaggery) industry, raise awareness about jaggery’s health benefits and explore possibilities for jaggery-based products, the Sugar Industry and Cane Development Department of the Uttar Pradesh government had organised the gud mahotsav in Lucknow.
“Jaggery has been an integral part of a typical Uttar Pradesh platter. Earlier, people knew of merely jaggery in its typical form. We have tried to link the 55 types of jaggery in the state with the people who otherwise are not aware of its variety,” Sanjay Bhoosreddy, chief secretary, Sugar Industry and Sugarcane Development Department, told Gaon Connection. “At this festival, jaggery came in a wide price range — from Rs 50 per kilogramme to Rs 5,000 per kilogramme,”
In the festival, many women farmers from districts like Ayodhya, Lakhimpur, Pilibhit, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Farrukhabad and Shamli had set up stalls that sold and promoted jaggery of diverse types and flavours.
Various stalls were set up to promote the sale and awareness of jaggery and the products that are made from it. There were several types of jaggery available at the event flavoured with aniseed, cardamom, dry ginger, peanuts, saffron, almonds and sesame. There was be laddoo, tea, ice cream, halwa and pongal, all made of jaggery.
Also Read: Pongal O Pongal: Add sweetness to your day with this traditional Pongal speciality
It is learnt that the Uttar Pradesh government will continue to organise such festivals in future as well. “Such a festival was organised in the state for the first time. The jaggery festival witnessed a hundred and three stalls of jaggery and jaggery-based products. Many stalls were able to sell eighty-per cent of their stocks. Many had to bring in fresh supplies from their villages for the second day. The response was really good,” Bhoosreddy said.
Also Read: Gud Tidings: Migrant families from Bihar add the sweetness of jaggery to Bhogali Bihu in Assam
Neelesh Misra’s new venture, Slow Products, is also passionate about promoting organic jaggery-based products whose 10 per cent profits are shared with the farmers/producers. Slow Products are sourced from food items that were once a part and parcel of the Indian civilisation but have now been forgotten in the razzmatazz of the so-called modernity. The mission behind this product range is to link the Indian farmers and indigenous producers of local products with the markets all over the world. These products are known for their top-notch quality and reasonable prices.
