The year was 510BC. Soldiers of the Persian emperor Darius, in their march across the Indian subcontinent saw a strange-looking plant with stalks growing along the banks of the Indus. It was something the Persians had never seen before and which they referred to as "the reed which gives honey without bees." It was the humble sugarcane.
Sugar,derived from sugarcane,has not just enamoured the Persians, but has had Indians hooked for thousands of years. So much so that India, with an output of almost 24 million tonnes, is the second largest sugar-producing nation after Brazil. Much of what is produced is relished within the country itself, making India the world's largest sugar consumer and Indians by default, people with the biggest sweet tooth.
This is hardly surprising, says brand consultant Harish Bijoor. "If I were to picturize an Indian, a large tooth and a syrupy yellow-orange motichur laddoo would tell it all. Our mythology is loaded with descriptions of sweets. Every region has many varieties of sweets.Whether it is birthdays, festivals, marriages or any other celebration, sweets abound in our lives."
Psychologist Aruna Broota attributes a partof our sugar fixation to the Indian ethos of equating sweets with auspicious occasions. "Even a hardcore chocolate-maker like Cadbury's had to acknowledge this through its advertising tagline : Kuch shubh kaam se pehle kuch meetha ho jaaye," she says. "The medical rationale is that eating something sweet raises glucose levels, which can provide temporary high and is often helpful in alleviating anxiety and stress."
India's inclination for sweets ha naturally spelt a huge opportunity of not just mithai-makers but for manufacturers and marketers of chocolates ice-creams and frozen desserts. Al ready, according to recent reports chocolate consumption in the country has trebled in the past seven years.And it doesn't seem as if demand is going to hit south anytime soon."India need no evangelical selling of the sweet product. If the price and taste fit, the market is ready," says Bijoor.
But there is the flip-side too. With an estimated 50 m diabetics, India i seen as the diabetic capital of th world.What's more,the way consumption levels are rising, it might need to start importing sugar regularly within a few years. According to Narendra Murkumbi, former president of the Indian Sugar Mills Association, sugar consumption in India is set to rise t 31.3 m tonnes by 2020 from 21 m tonne now, while production will hove around 26.4 m tonnes."Per capita consumption of sugar will increase du to GDP growth and lifestyle change that encourage use of processed foods But limited availability of irrigated land and decreased farm productivity may stunt production," he says.
For a country that clearly loves it cheeni,that may notbe good news.Bu it may also be a wake-up call to pay heed to its sugar sector, which face challenges like irrational sugar can pricing (often driven by politics ) a well as government controls. "Our sugarcane productivity is quite les compared to China,"says PK Joshi of Delhi's International Food Policy Re search Institute. "Our processing industries are quite old and trade policies not consistent. Therefore, we need to put in place a strategy that cover the entire sugar-making process - from production to processing t trade."This is a suggestion the country should start considering soon before we lament about cheeni being kum.
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THESE
Sugar has been in use in India since early times. There are references to it even in Sutra literature of 800 BC
Almost 5 million hectares of land is under sugarcane cultivation in the country Indian sugar production follows a 5-year cycle. There is a 2-3 year high phase followed by a 2-3 year low one India's sweet fixation is facilitated by a mind-boggling assortment of mithais found in every part of the country - from rosogollas and sandesh in the east to laddoos and gulab jamuns in the north and from srikhand and modak in the west to payasam and Mysore Pak in the south