Jaggery price surpassing all-time hikes amid sugar price slide

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A toddy palm plant can produce up to four pots and a viss of jaggery can be produced if you boil eight pots. Two bundles of pigeon pea straw are used as fuel and it costs K5,000 per cart loaded with 25-30 bundles.

By TWA

Jaggery is mainly utilized in making Myanmar’s traditional snacks. It is also used as a sugar substitute in some drinks. Most importantly, rural people who do the farming usually eat rice with jaggery for breakfast.
The price of jaggery stood at only K600 per viss (a viss equals 1.6 kilogrammes) in 2008. While sugar prices hit a high of K1,700 per viss in the 2010s, jaggery prices plunged. Consequently, toddy palm plants climbers were forced to turn to migrant workers in foreign countries as the business was physically demanding but less secure financially.
Some plants were even cut down to use as firewood in the previous years amid the shortage of plant climbers and price drop. It takes about a decade to collect toddy sap from a mature palm plant.  Conservationists object to felling for wood.
After that, the jaggery market raised its head again. The price was higher than the sugar price in 2020. When sugar fetched K900 per viss in 2020, jaggery price reached K1,800 per viss.
In early 2021, sugar price had jumped to K1,900 per viss and jaggery price stood at K2,100 per viss. The price gap is around K200-300 per viss.
When the sugar price touched a high of K2,100 per viss in early 2022, jaggery from the Mahlaing area was priced at K2,800 per viss. On 30 July 2022, sugar price was K2,200 per viss, jaggery price moved in the range of K2,300 and K2,800 per depending on different varieties produced from different regions. Despite the jaggery season, the price increased to K2,170-K3,500 per viss on 25 April 2022. The toddy sap collection season takes place three times a year. (April, May, September-October).
A toddy palm plant can produce up to four pots and a viss of jaggery can be produced if you boil eight pots. Two bundles of pigeon pea straw are used as fuel and it costs K5,000 per cart loaded with 25-30 bundles, said Ko Aung Tun, a plant climber from Lukan village, Yenangyoung Township. When the sugar price was lower than jaggery, some businesspersons sold jaggery which is mixed with sugar. The price of a jaggery combo is K300-K400 per viss lower than organic jaggery.
However, there is a small gap between sugar and jaggery this month. Therefore, organic jaggery is mostly seen in the domestic markets. Thus, jaggery prices rose four times this year, compared to the prices registered in the previous decade. The market is considered to be as cool as cucumber in difficult situations.
Translated

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