Sugarcane

Sugarcane is a fascinating plant that has had an extraordinary impact for centuries.  Sugarcane’s unique quality is that it stores sucrose within the fibers of its stalks which makes it one of the most concentrated sources of sugar. This has made sugarcane one of the most important crops in the world and the source of 80% of the world’s sugar. During most of history, sugar was difficult to produce and was so expensive that only the most wealthy or those that lived near its production had regular access to it. Sugar was always highly sought after as a food and medicine. It was considered to be medicine itself, but it was also used to make tinctures more palatable by sweetening them. Today sugar is so common that people who don’t want to consume it have to be diligent to avoid it.  The current ever present nature of sugar obscures the complex history of how difficult it was to make a rare “spice” so readily available. 

Sugarcane is a grass that belongs to the same family as wheat, corn and rice. Unlike these relatives, sugarcane took much longer to become a widely cultivated crop. This is largely due to the specific requirements for it to thrive. The right climate will have temperatures between 70F and 90F with an average rainfall of about 60 inches per year being ideal. While large areas of the world are hospitable to the grasses we harvest grain from, sugarcane only grows in tropical/subtropical regions.  For centuries trade between these regions and cooler, more temperate regions was slow and dangerous which made the produce that could only be grown in the tropics rare and expensive in other regions. 

The most significant challenge to trading harvested sugarcane is that it spoils very quickly.  The simple sugars will quickly begin to ferment with both yeast and bacteria which causes the juice to degrade within a few hours and spoil within a day. This meant consumption was limited to specific areas where sugarcane grew well and could be consumed near the fields. The solution was to refine the cane juice into crystallized sugar so that it would be stable for transportation out of cultivation areas. The first record of this process is from India where a process was created to boil excess water from the juice and crystallize the sucrose into sugar. This knowledge of refining was limited to areas where sugarcane grew since processing has to take place so quickly after harvest. The refining process allowed sugar to be transported far from the regions where sugarcane grows.

Sugarcane’s origin has been traced to New Guinea approximately 10,000 years ago, spreading from there to China and later to India. India is where the first recorded Western contact was made with sugar.  Alexander the Great’s army arrived in India and one of his generals remarked on a “sweet reed” that produced honey that they encountered there. Sugarcane cultivation moved slowly along trade routes and by the 9th century was cultivated in the Mediterranean.  Sugarcane production outside of SouthEast Asia was difficult because of the specific tropical/subtropical conditions required for it to thrive.  While the Mediterranean falls within the temperature range for sugarcane to grow, it does not have the required amount of rainfall. Growing sugarcane there required the development of irrigation networks which were built by the Moors.  Even so, the Mediterranean was not able to produce enough to fill demand. This unfulfilled demand meant that sugar was one of the most expensive products in Europe.  This prompted countries and private consortiums to find ways to improve and control production which would generate enormous profits.

The first areas where sugarcane could be grown well that were under the control of European countries were the Canary Islands by the Spanish and Madeira by the Portuguese. Since these islands did not produce enough sugar to fill demand, sugarcane began its spread to the Americas on Columbus’ second voyage. As islands were colonized by Europeans and developed, sugarcane spread to all of the Caribbean islands where it grew very well. This began an era of immense wealth for European plantation owners. The islands produced up to 90% of Europe’s sugar and the demand for sugar continued to be intense in Europe. High prices were commanded and plantation owners found themselves to be among the most wealthy classes in Europe. 

This growth of Caribbean plantations required manual labor to work the fields, press the sugarcane, and boil the juice for refinement. Early sugar production was hard, dangerous work. Early sugar production was hard, dangerous work - cutting cane by hand is dangerous due to snakes and the risks of injury from the cane knives, crushing cane could take limbs, and the multiple boiling cycles required to remove water made burn injuries common. Native populations were the first to be forced by colonizers to do this work, but those populations were quickly wiped out by European diseases. Indentured servitude of other Europeans was tried, but they were as susceptible to diseases such as yellow fever and malaria as the native populations. As a result of the need for plantation labor, the transatlantic slave trade grew exponentially, and plantations brought enslaved Africans to work the fields and the sugar houses. Africans were more resistant to the diseases that ravaged natives and colonizers and were seen as an expendable work force that would survive disease longer than the rest of the population. 

Over time slavery was abolished or abandoned, Haiti’s slaves revolted and removed the French between 1791-1801, the British abolished slavery in 1833, Portugal in 1869, and Spain in 1873. These abolition decrees were a significant step towards freedom, but former slaves were still bound economically to their former lands and those who owned the land for many years.

Technological developments made sugar production safer and eliminated most manual labor. Today most sugarcane is cultivated on plains or rolling hills that can be harvested by specially designed combines. Crushing occurs within large mills that don’t carry the risk of severe injury, and sugar boiling has advanced to where most of the sugar is extracted from the molasses in a safe manner. Additionally the technology was developed to effectively extract refined sugar from beets. Sugar beets currently fill approximately 20% of the world’s refined sugar supply.

The next blog post will be about modern sugar processing and rum production.