Jaggery arrivals at the Anakapalli jaggery market here dropped by 400,000 lumps during October-February as against the same period last season.
The main reasons include delayed sugarcane crop by a few weeks due to Nilam cyclone and shortage of labour, said KLN Rao, president, Anakapalli Jaggery Merchants Association.
However, compared with the last season, rates are attractive this time, and this has seen arrivals picking up from January, he added.
Between October and February last year, the market received 2.9 million lumps (each lump carries 15 kg) whereas this year, it was 2.5 million. Of this, about 1.6 million came in January and February only. March-April last year received 1.2 million lumps and this year traders expects some fall owing to several reasons, including lower sugarcane crop, increase in labour charges and mills offering Rs 2,000 per tonne cane at the field itself, Rao said.
Owing to high arrivals in January and February, traders have now stocked more than 800 lorry loads (each load contains 10-12 tonne), he said. And this has also seen an increase in price by Rs 25 per 10 kg over the last two months.
According to local traders, jaggery production in Uttar Pradesh has fallen 20-25 per cent during this season because of high supporting prices offered by the mills to cane farmers. Production has also declines in Maharashtra and Karnataka for various reasons. Anakapalli traders, therefore, expect good margin for their stocks after three-four months, said K Buchiraju, a trader.
