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Cumbum jaggery loses taste
Jaggery from Cumbum was an essential ingredient of the sweets made in west Prakasam, Palanadu and Nandyal. The jaggery which was known for its sweet yet smooth taste has been losing its charm as the key ingredient. It has lost demand as people and merchants now prefer jaggery from Coimbatore, Anakapalle, Kakinada, Tiruvuru and other places in Andhra Pradesh.
​Cumbum: Jaggery from Cumbum was an essential ingredient of the sweets made in west Prakasam, Palanadu and Nandyal. The jaggery which was known for its sweet yet smooth taste has been losing its charm as the key ingredient. It has lost demand as people and merchants now prefer jaggery from Coimbatore, Anakapalle, Kakinada, Tiruvuru and other places in Andhra Pradesh.
The jaggery was once famous in Cumbum and merchants from then Madras, Mysore and Hyderabad States used to make a beeline. Villages like Somavara Pet and Bestavara Pet used to be the market centres for jaggery, are now leaving in the shadows of their glorious past and the once famous jiggery is on the verge of extinction.
G. Venkaiah, a veteran jaggery merchant said, “Cumbum jaggery has become a history now. Merchants from all over south India used to throng the region, when sugarcane was being cultivated in thousands of acres. The markets were always busy with the sellers, buyers. Now, as the sugarcane production dipped the frenzy and footfalls stopped.”
Now, there are only a few farmers that cultivate sugarcane in Cumbum and surrounding areas. The total area of cultivation has dropped to 110 acres. The lack of water coupled with unstable minimum support price for the produce drove farmers away from sugarcane to commercial crops like cotton, tobacco, chilli and others.
M Subbaratnam, a jaggery maker in Somavara Pet said, “We are investing about Rs 40,000 to 50,000 on each acre of sugarcane. As the water is not available, we should depend on the bore wells, which is an extra investment of Rs 10,000 for the electricity. By working for a year, we are getting a price of Rs 3,500 per quintal of jaggery.
Though we produce about 30 to 35 quintals of jaggery from the sugarcane of one acre, we are not even getting a meagre Rs 30,000 for our labour in the farm and the high temperature furnaces during production of jaggery.”Subbaratnam, Pedda Kondaiah and Venkata Ramanaiah are the only farmers left in Somavara Pet, who are busy making jaggery. They cultivated the sugarcane in just 20 acres, and not sure whether they can continue it next year.
