The people of West Bengal are ready to welcome the new year, and winter has set in firmly at the end of the year. Winter means cakes and sweets made with fragrant date palm jaggery. But across West Bengal, a shortage of trees means date palm sap is not available to meet demand, so good date palm jaggery is also scarce across the state, leaving residents disappointed.

Besides the areas along the India-Bangladesh international border, the state's rural areas once had date palms in abundance. For various adverse reasons the number of trees has gradually fallen sharply. So even when pots are tied to the trees, there is not enough sap, and although there is demand for good date palm jaggery, it cannot be met.

Climate change, urbanisation, indiscriminate felling of date palms and the steadily falling number of tappers are reducing the output and quality of the traditional nolen gur, jhola gur and patali gur made from date palm sap. Cheap fake jaggery coming on to the market is pushing the industry into further danger. Many tappers, known as gachhi or shiuli, and by some as gachhiyal, rely on winter demand for date palm jaggery to improve their finances, and they too are becoming economically weaker.

The number of shiuli, the people who climb the trees and cut them to make them ready for sap, is also falling, raising fears for the future of the industry.

Bidhan Bhakta, a shiuli from Bagda in North 24 Parganas district, said demand for date palm jaggery is rising day by day, but with fewer trees than before there is not enough sap, and so good jaggery cannot be had either.

Bidhan Bhakta said new trees must be planted and cared for; only then will the supply of sap increase and good jaggery become available.

Solving the problem requires conservation of date palms, training for shiuli and better marketing systems, the report says. Otherwise the cool, sweet date palm sap of winter mornings, a favourite of Bengalis, will become rare.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.