In Katihar’s Simariya, right next to the highway, Sultan and a dozen others were working in knee-deep ponds. With half-boat-like wooden tools in their hands and an aluminum pot within reach, they dug deeper, re-emerged, and put the mud back into what they call the ganja. Then begins the process of shaking until only matte black, pearl-like objects are left in the ganja. These are makhana seeds, also locally known as guriya.

“For every kilogram I harvest or seeds collected, I would get Rs 40,” Sultan said. “We work for nearly 6-7 hours every day. We stay inside the water to collect the makhana seeds. I do have lunch in between, but I choose to come back to the task after just a few minutes of break. We have lunch in the wet clothes itself.”

Sultan was among the makhana workers who met Rahul Gandhi during his Bihar Voter Adhikar Yatra. Gandhi even jumped into the makhana farms to understand how the cultivation of this trending superfood is done. Sultan recalls telling the Lok Sabha LoP that machines cannot replace humans in harvesting makhana.

Sultan chooses to do this backbreaking work in his hometown rather than working as a migrant in Gujarat or Punjab.

“These cuts and wounds are from the thorns in makhana plants. The entire plant is full of thorns,” Sultan said while showing his palms. “Bihar doesn’t have any industries. Working in cities like Mumbai for 12 hours and earning a similar pay is of no use.”

He further added that he has to apply medicines on his palms at night, otherwise the pain becomes unbearable. Workers in this Katihar field earn roughly Rs 400–500 a day.

While Seemanchal’s makhana fields have workers from the Muslim community as well, the roasting and popping units are overwhelmingly dominated by workers from the Mallah community. Makhana is an integral part of the Mallahs’ identity. In the roasting and popping units in Simariya, it is the Mallah workforce from Darbhanga who use their traditional skills to ensure high productivity.

In Darbhanga’s Kokat village, once known as an ultra-left CPI-ML bastion, we met farmers of makhana and workers from the Mallah community.

The workers here too get Rs 40 per kilogram for collecting from the pond farms. But the ponds here are deeper, muddier, and also have fish that can bite you underwater.

Kapil Mukhiya, in his late 40s, told India Today, “The labour charges keep changing. Until five years back, we would get Rs 25 per kilogram of seeds collected. Now the payouts have improved. We usually get Rs 40, but in the final collection or harvesting rounds, we might get Rs 50 per kilogram.”

These workers call makhana seeds merely kala patthar (black stone).

Children as young as 12 join the harvesters in Darbhanga’s Bahadurpur Block’s Kokat village. In the middle of lush green farms, attempts are being made to expand foxnut farming once again.

These harvesters hand over their seeds to the farmer who owns the pond or has leased it for farming. Raj Kishor Mukhiya, who has been in the business for nearly 20 years, says he gets Rs 250 per kilogram for the makhana seeds.

“We don’t know how the rates are fixed. But it’s someone from the market who decides that seeds are to be sold at this rate. We won’t sell the makhana seeds to anyone who pays less — not even our relatives,” Raj Kishor said.

The costs of germination, cleaning the pond, sowing, weeding out extra plants, medicines, and payments to harvesters are all borne by farmers like him. When seed prices sink, they bear the brunt too.

“In 2023, the prices of makhana seeds went too low. We refused to take them out of the farms,” he said. One makhana startup owner suggested this was possibly due to the Ukraine-Russia war.

Farmers like Raj Kishor sell the seeds, or guriyas, to the roasting and popping units. The landing price of seeds for popping unit owners is Rs 250 per kilogram. However, by their calculation, from every three kilograms of seeds roasted and popped, they get only one kilogram of lava — i.e., popped makhana.

Rajeev Mukhiya, who recently shifted his popping unit to Kokat from West Bengal, says the market value of Bihari makhana is far better. He too belongs to the Mallah community — an Extremely Backward Class caste — and is hoping to attain economic stability in his hometown.

The process is intensive: one round of drying in the sun, one round of sorting and grading, and two rounds of roasting before the seeds are ready for popping. Seeds are roasted on at least four to five chullahs in iron pots, before being smashed with a wooden hammer. Nearly four to five workers are needed to keep a popping unit running, while extra helping hands ease the burden on those sitting in front of hot chullahs and iron pots.

Rajeev Mukhiya told India Today, “Look at the intensive labour and multiple hands involved. After the popping, we pack them in jute bags supposed to carry 10 kgs of makhana. They might get filled with 8–9 kilograms or even accommodate 11 kilograms. We sell those jute bags for Rs 7,500.” The lighter the bag, the better the earning. Profitability depends on how big the popped makhanas are.

The traders or processors buy these popped makhanas from people like Rajeev. They either sell them wholesale or further process them for higher returns.

Arvind Jain, one of the oldest makhana traders of Darbhanga, told India Today, “We sort the makhana as per their quality. The bigger the size, the better the return.” Traders clean the foxnuts, weeding out half-burnt, crushed, or misshapen ones. They are then sold to food processors, who may need makhana powders.

At this stage, prices vary depending on size. Shrawan Roy, who runs a startup named MBA Makhanawala, explained the pricing formula: “Grade 6 plus is considered the best quality and is taken as export quality. In the Indian market, most consumption is of Grade 4 and 5 makhana. Grade 3 is considered the lowest quality. It is often mixed with bigger sizes to increase the weight, as smaller makhanas are heavier.”

Roy said prices of makhana could vary between Rs 900–950 per kg to Rs 1,400 per kg depending on the quality. In metro cities like Delhi, it is Grade 4 or 5 mixed variety that sells for anywhere between Rs 1,800–2,200 per kilogram.

It is when makhana changes hands and reaches the traders that kala pathhar turns into kala sona. Traders like Jain and Roy blame stockists for the current situation where foxnut prices are skyrocketing, while farmers and labourers fail to benefit.

“The stockists control the prices at their will. During Navratri and Diwali, the prices surge,” Jain said, questioning how that is possible when the real harvest season is still months away. The makhana harvest usually begins by late July or August and goes on till October.

Due to the involvement of big traders who stock large quantities of makhana, prices sometimes fluctuate like the share market.

Roshan Mukhiya, who runs his own popping unit and makhana brand, said, “Politics have a deep impact on our work. With Rahul Gandhi’s visit to makhana fields, the prices jumped by Rs 100 per kilogram. In the wake of the Ukraine-Russia war, the prices of seeds had tanked, leaving the farmers and workers in the lurch.”

Notably, after the GI tag was given to Mithila Makhana, the overall ecosystem has improved. From Mallah labourers to traders, everyone accepts there has been nearly threefold improvement.

With the Bihar Assembly polls barely a couple of months away, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the INDIA bloc are trying to win over the Mallahs. The EBC community — closely linked with fishing, boating, and foxnut farming — has largely voted for the NDA in past elections. Mallah leader Mukesh Sahni has been attempting to rally the Mallah caste bloc on his side. In this election, he travelled across Bihar with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Bihar LoP Tejashwi Yadav. The INDIA bloc hopes to eat into the NDA’s EBC vote bank. With Gandhi’s visit to makhana farmers and labourers — who predominantly belong to the Mallah community — the focus is back on their economic conditions.

One wonders why the benefits of the skyrocketing prices of one of India’s most sought-after superfoods are not trickling down to the indigenous community that has preserved it. Their workforce still wades in muddy water, with just a tiny piece of cloth to cover their bodies, earning only Rs 40 per kg for makhana seeds.

– Ends