White Sugar vs Jaggery-indian contradictions

White sugar dominates the sweetener market in the country and both the sugar cane growers as well as the sugar mills have a symbiotic relationship and an organic linkage because of captive supply of cane grown in a certain area to nearby mills as per the law. Though India is one of the top sugar producing countries in the world, both the farmer as well as the industry are in doldrums due to many reasons. Payment arrears by the mills to the farmers run to thousands of crores of rupees while the mills are complaining about losses due to lower realization of prices for their product. Thus no one seems to be happy because of this multibillion industry as it exists to day. Adding to this problem is the declining prices ruling in the global sugar market making export also unattractive. If this is so, why not the government discourage cultivation of sugar cane and shift the land presently being used for cane cultivation for growing more critical food crops like oilseeds and pulses? Though this is an issue persisting for the last few years, no political courage seems to be evident among successive governments at Delhi.

There is another side story to sugar saga in this country which pertains to the low profile operation by a little known industry making another product from sugar cane viz Jaggery or Gud as it is known properly. Jaggery industry is a much neglected sector with no adequate oversight by the government, producing a range of jaggery products with non-uniform standards, filthy manufacturing environment and ill defined process parameters. Indian population uses jaggery as an essential ingredient in many of the traditional food preparations and the market can be enormously varying. Consumers are left at the mercy of the non-descript manufacturers and unreliable traders. Will this situation change for the better? After all almost 30% of the sugarcane harvested in the country estimated at about 260 million tons (MT) annually is thought to be going to the jaggery industry and this sector just cannot be ignored any more.

What is the difference between sugar and jaggery and why is that people prefer white sugar as a common sweetener in their day to day life? There are reasons such as the unattractive color of jaggery, its characteristic caramelized taste not liked by many, its unsuitably to make many products because of its physical properties, indifferent and non-uniform quality credentials and high cost compared to sugar. Jaggery is largely confined to micro and cottage scale operations near sugar growing areas and depend heavily on supplies of cane from the same belt as that linked to large sugar factories. Many traditional food preparations use Jaggery as a sweetener while sugar is the favored one for the food industry, especially for sweet products and by the house holds for beverages and traditional Indian sweets. What is intriguing is the vast price difference between sugar and jaggery, the latter almost 50-60% costlier though it is produced by a small scale sector with practically no over head expenditure in production costing. Besides jaggery yield is almost 100% of the sugar content in the cane juice making the process more economical. Management pundits may say that it is just a response to the demand supply situation!

Chemically white sugar is almost 100% sucrose with traces of minerals, Jaggery has about 3-10% water.with sucrose and reducing sugars being the major solids. Jaggery has some mineral constituents amounting to about 0.6 to 1%. Nutritionally the minerals like iron (10 mg%), Calcium (120 mg%), Magnesium (200 mg%), Potassium (800 mg%), Phosphorus (70 mg%) besides trace amounts of  Copper and Zinc. As it is a product made by prolonged boiling for hours together in open pans almost all biological nutrients are destroyed in the process. Still it is considered traditionally a nutritious substance used extensively in Ayurvedic medicines and traditional home remedies. No doubt white sugar production and over consumption in modern world is one of the great follies of mankind for which we are regretting to day collectively!

A typical Jaggey making unit is normally housed in a dilapidated tiled or asbestos roofed "shed". with no kutcha flooring, ill ventilated, full of cobwebs and fly infested and during the manufacturing operation the shed is ful of smoke literally choking the workers, doing the chores. The bagasse, after juice extraction is used as fuel for boiling the cane juice on an open hearth, naturally spewing out copious smoke all around. The cleanliness, sanitation and hygiene are so bade one has to see it to believe. Any consumer visiting such a unit will think twice before buying Jaggey again. Of course there are many exceptions where better managed Jaggery units also exist though they are far and few. It is in this context one has to appreciate the initiatives of the two agricultural university in Karnataka at Dharward and Bangalore deserve applause for setting up modern jaggery making units based on good manufacturing practices at Mudhol and Mandya. 

It is just about 2-3 years since these units were established and they seem to be doing a decent job considering the normal work pace associated with government institutions. The Jaggery Center at Mudhol in Bagalkot District is already reported to be producing organic Jaggery with a capacity to crush 40 tons of cane a day. The Jaggery Park as it is called was set up under the National Agriculture Development Scheme with an investment of about Rs 20 crore in 2011 and is supposed to improve Jaggery making process, infuse science in the practices, training of farmers, bring about cost effectiveness, preservation and packing improvements, minimizing chemical residue levels in the end product and further value addition to increase the farmer income. Besides solid Jaggery the center also makes Jaggery syrup and powder targeting different end users. Same applies to Mandya Jaggery Center also and both these units effectively meet the needs of more than 1000 organic cane growers in the state in selling their crops.  

One is really inspired by the achievement of the Mudhol Jaggey unit in creating a brand image for its products and exporting its products to countries like Russia within a short span of its launch. This jaggery according to the authorities there does not use unnecessary chemicals while manufacturing with only calcium carbonate, edible oil and wild okra going into its process. The Jaggery Park intends to promote setting up more such units as the entrepreneur can get a clean margin of Rs 900 per ton. According to the scientific team that is spearheading this mew initiative to promote jaggery, with an investment of Rs 1 crore a production unit to manufacture 40 tons of high quality organic jaggery, can be set up operated with the training provided by them. Probably more research is needed at food technology research institutions to diversify the use of jaggery in many products where sugar is extensively used at present. 

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

SELF RELIANCE IN EDIBLE OIL AND PULSES-INDIA'S WOES!

Edible oils and pulses play a significant role in the diets in India where the population by nature or due economic compulsions are predominantly herbivores. Especially critical is the place of pulses in the diet as they provide a major part of the proteins needed for balanced nutrition. In contrast oils constitute the energy source, supposed to contribute about 30% of biological energy in the diet. On an average humans need about 50-60 gm each of oils and pulses to meet the body needs and this requirement can be met from a variety of sources including pulses, oil seeds and extracted oils from seeds like groundnut, oil palm, soybean, cotton seed, mustard, sesame and others like maize germ, rice bran etc. While India produces about 20 million tons(mt) of pulses annually, its edible oil production is stagnating at around 8 mt since 2003-2004.

In spite of the critical shortage of the above two food crops ever since independence, not much could be done in raising their production due to many reasons. Historically India always placed higher priority to production of cereals like rice and wheat through attractive minimum support price policies till the year 2000 and farmers were always attracted by such incentives to cultivate more cereals than pulses and oil seeds. Though the MSP levels were raised 92% in the case of mustard to 212% for sunflower between 2001 to 2013, the production of these two crops still languished and the country is at a loss as to what has to be done to raise their production. The history of repeated imports of edible oils and pulses continue causing a hemorrhagic out flow of foreign exchange year after year to prevent price escalation in the domestic market.

While in 200-2001, the proportion of imports of oils was less than 50% ( 5 mt out of 11 mt) of the country's need, to day the corresponding figure stands at a whopping 60%( 10.5 mt out of 18 mt)! Domestic production increased by just 40% during these 13 years while imports more than doubled. . While annual per capita use of oil is about 92 kg in Argentina, 60 kg in the EU countries, 55 kg in America, in India it is a paltry 15 kg. The world average is more than 25 kg, almost double that in India. Of course nutritionists may argue that low consumption of fat is a win-win situation as high fat consumption is implicated in many disease like CVD, Hypertension, Diabetes and Obesity!  Probably if the present spurt in oil prices with most oils being priced between Rs 100-200 per liter, how far demand for this culinary ingredient will be sustained is a million dollar question. However market optimists expect that by 2020 the demand may reach about 23 mt from the current availability of 18 mt. How the government is going to react to this situation remains to be seen.

Current pulse production of 20 mt is supplemented by import of about 4 mt and the daily per capita availability works out to about 70 gm though the National Sample Survey says that the consumption is only about less than 30 gm a day. Why this discrepancy is not clear but there is a trend which clearly shows that consumption of pulses is coming down significantly over the years and an Indian citizen was much better off in the first decade after independence compared to present day India as far as pulse consumption is concerned. In contrast per capita availability cereals is almost same to day compared to 60 years ago hovering around 450 gm a day. Whether this justifies successive government efforts in boosting cereal production at any cost is matter of debate. Interestingly in spite of imports of about 4 mt of pulses into India the market prices of pulses still rule very high, unaffordable to many low income citizens to buy the minimum need as per the nutritional guide.

The above convoluted picture raises another important question regarding the priority accorded to sugarcane in this country which is heavily steeped in politics, most powerful politicians being products of the sugar lobby which have tremendous influence on the thinking and working of the governments at the Center as well as in some states. As a nation it is time that the role of sugarcane in the agricultural landscape of the country is revisited. 25 mt of sugar produced from sugarcane cultivated in 53 million hectares of country's precious land can be considered laudable from agricultural achievement view but how relevant is this to the food needs of the country? Sugar is considered a white poison in the lives of people though it adds considerable pleasure to the human palate and its by product Alcohol inebriates the consumer! From nutrition angle sugar does not serve any purpose in the diet and its calories are no more superior to that contributed by starch contained in all cereals, pulses, root crops, fruits and many vegetables. Why not restrict the sugarcane cultivation through disincentives and punitive measures and divert the land for raising pulses and oil seeds in the national interest? If the sugarcane cultivation is reduced by 50% the resulting spared land can increase the present production of oil seeds and pulses very significantly.

To day the area under cultivation for oil seeds and pulses is 30 million hectares (mha) and 25 mha respectively. Imagine the impact of diverting 50% of the land currently under sugarcane (about 27 mha) to production of these vital crops on the economic health as well the human health of the population in the country. All it needs is to protect the income of farmers who are cultivating sugarcane at present which will be persuasive enough for them to switch over.to oil seeds and pulses.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com