Photographer Holger Hoffmann and writer Sylvia Furrer are Edge of Humanity Magazine contributors of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Jaggery – Sugar (Not Just) for Gods’. To see Sylvia and Holger ‘s body of work, click on any photograph.

India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of jaggery. This unrefined cane sugar, which tastes of molasses and caramel, is used in a wide variety of Indian dishes and sweets, but also as an offering to the gods. Sylvia Furrer (text) and Holger Hoffmann (photos) became fascinated by the production process during their journey through the state of Chhattisgarh.

Sugarcane fields line the narrow road. The canes are three meters tall. It is harvest time: men and women cut the canes with sickles, strip them of their leaves, and bundle them. “Up to 6,000 kg of sugarcane is harvested daily from a single field,” explains Linco, our driver. “It’s hard work that earns the workers 300 to 400 rupees (3 to 4 US dollars) a day.”

In the next village, a tractor heads towards us. Its trailer is fully loaded with sugarcane. “It’s on its way to the nearest processing plant,” says Linco. We follow the tractor and it is not long before we spot a building in the distance, with black smoke rising from its four chimneys. Several tractors are already parked in the forecourt, waiting for their trailers to be unloaded. Linco learns from one of the farmers that they receive 500 rupees per 100 kg of sugarcane from the processing plant.

We get out and walk between the mountains of sugarcane to the conveyor belt. It transports the bundles thrown onto it directly into the sugarcane press. At the side, the yellowish juice flows through a channel into a small collection basin. Here, a woman scoops out the coarsest sugarcane fibres before the juice flows underground into a large tank inside the building. At the same time, the pressed sugarcane is transported further along an inclined conveyor belt until it drops at the end onto a waiting cart. “A third of the sugarcane becomes waste,” explains Linco. “We call it bagasse. It isn’t thrown away, but used as fuel. That makes jaggery production more ecological.”

Once the cart is full, a man pushes it to an area the size of a football field, where the bagasse fibres are spread out to dry. As soon as they are dry, two people rake them together onto a large cloth, which is then tied up and carried on a man’s head to the outer wall of the processing building. Here, men and women are seated at various points, pushing the bagasse with their hands or feet through a small opening in the wall into the blazing fire behind it. The fire heats the huge pans above, filled with sugarcane juice, to up to 200°C.

We are heading to the actual processing plant. It consists of four production lines, each comprising four cast-iron pans, approximately two metres in diameter, set into the floor in a row one behind the other. Next to the fourth is an even larger pan with a flat bottom, called ‚chaak‘. It is hot, steam is in the air and it smells of caramel. In the first pan, the juice is still dark. A man is busy skimming the foam with a long-handled ladle into plastic bags hung up on the side. We are told that he had previously added a mixture of okra root and water to the boiling sugarcane juice. The foam produced by constant stirring binds even the smallest fibre particles still present in the juice.

Two men scoop the now-cleaned juice into the next pan using a bucket suspended from two ropes, where the juice is further condensed. In the final pan, the juice – now turning golden yellow and becoming viscous – bubbles away at the highest temperature until all the water has evaporated. The now caramel-coloured mass is then ladled into the ‚chaak‘ to cool, where it is stirred back and forth with a scraper to prevent it from solidifying during crystallisation. Just before this – the jaggery is already pulling threads – it is poured into 20-litre metal cans. This is how 12 to 13 kg of jaggery is obtained from 100 kg of sugarcane. The entire production process takes less than an hour.

Most of the jaggery is sold to wholesalers and confectionery manufacturers. In the market, it costs around 40 rupees per kilogram in the form of balls or cylinders. Traditional jaggery sweets can be found in markets throughout India. Jaggery, which contains more mineral salts than refined sugar, is also used in Indian cuisine as an ingredient in both sweet and savoury dishes. In Gujarati cuisine in particular, jaggery is added to dāl to balance the spicy, salty and sour components with its sweetness.

On our trip, we had the opportunity to experience several Hindu festivals, including Makar Sankranti, the harvest festival Pongal, and the Samakka Sarakka Jatara in Medaram, the world’s largest tribal festival. Jaggery plays a role in all of them: during the first, relatives and acquaintances are presented with Tilgul, a jaggery and sesame sweet. At Pongal, it is customary to prepare rice pudding with jaggery, coconut, cardamom and ghee. It is made either at home or at communal gatherings such as in temples or village squares. The ‘overcooking’ of the dish (meaning ‘pongal’ in Hindi) is said to symbolically signify the blessing of Parvati. And at the Samakka Sarakka Jatara, jaggery is carried to the temple by worshippers in cones weighing several kilos and offered there to the gods. Some devotees who vow to offer ‘Niluvetthu Bangaram’ – that means gold worth their own body weight – instead present the same amount of jaggery as a substitute for the gold. Women particularly enjoy sitting on the scales decorated with garlands of flowers and weighing out their body weight in „gold jaggery“ for the gods.

 Swiss travel and documentary photographer Holger Hoffmann and travel writer Sylvia Furrer have visited over 110 countries. They are fascinated by the customs and daily life of the people who have preserved their culture. Holger and Sylvia are deeply impressed by how they cope and adapt to the advances and pressures of the modern world. They have published travel and photo reports in various magazines.

All images and text © Sylvia Furrer and Holger Hoffmann