Social and Economic Consequences in the Industry of Sugarcane - Admission/Application Essay Example

HISTORY OF SUGAR The sweetener that dominates the world is “sugar”. It fulfills the human appetence for sweetnessas well as furnishes the calories to the human diet. It is utilized in cooking, in the formulation of foods processed in a commercial manner, as a fermenting and preservative agent and also employed as an additive in drinks. The most essential benefit of it is that it dulcifies without altering the flavor of drink and food. Moreover, its transportation is cheap, its storage is easy and it is comparatively imperishable and these features facilitated sugar to dismiss sweeteners like honey, sap of particular trees such as Maple of North America and fruit syrups. However, the lack of information creates difficulty in ascertaining when “Sugar” turned into the main sweetener in any particular world region, but in each case this has happened quite recently. Exemplifying are North America and Europe where the commodity was transformed into a normal good and available for consumption by poor from a luxury product and this happened as the new West Indies and Brazil colonies initiated sugar production in that much huge amounts that enhanced the supply of product and ultimately led to the reduction in its price. The declined prices thus encouraged consumption and ultimately enhanced the demand and to meet this increased demand industry expansion resulted in the Americas and afterwards in other regions of the tropical world. The increase in per capita utilization of sugar has been very closely linked with enhanced personal income, rapid industrialization, the utilization of processed foods, and the intake of beverages like coffee, tea and cocoa in which sugar is added as sweetener, since eighteenth century. Moreover, the comparatively recent fame of soft drinks has also flourished the utilization of sugar resulting in highest per capita utilization of sugar in a year in regions of its production like Fiji, Australia and Brazil where it is more than 50 kilograms. The consumption of sugar has been found to be exceedingly high in Cuba, where it was more than 80 kg per capita during the last decade of twentieth century. Later on, it declined to 60 kilograms per head which is still very high. In the initially industrialized countries like North America and Western Europe, the yearly consumption per capita ranges between thirty and forty kilograms and thus ranks them at second highest level of sugar consumers. The third group of sugar consumers includes the poorer nations of the world due to lower sugar consumption as in China, the annual per person sugar consumption is only 6.5 kg, and a much lower consumption has been found in several nations in the tropical Africa. This distinction in consumption between various parts of the world can be attributed to both the wealth differences as well as the easy accessibility of sugar. The recent increased health awareness in the industrialized Western world and raised concerns regarding the impacts of sugar on well being as well as the availability of sugar alternatives like low-calorie, high intensity sweeteners and corn syrup high in fructose have not only stabilized sugar consumption but in many regions these factors have resulted in a decline in its demand. Therefore, the expansion of sugar industry thus can be linked to the consumption in poorer nations in accordance with the richer nations’ pattern. Besides, sugar needs to beat the modern low calorie artificial sweeteners to keep its industry running.1 Sugar Source The sugar being utilized today is derived from two distinct plants i.e., sugar beets and sugar cane. There exists no clear difference amongst the sugar extracted from either of these sources although the cultivation and sugar extraction procedures are different from each. Sugar cane is a fragile plant that springs up only in tropical regions, whilst sugar beets are sturdier crop that develop in the temperate regions of North America and Europe. Chemically sugar is categorized as a carbohydrate with name “sucrose” that occurs in plants naturally. As its concentration is most rich in sugar beet and sugarcane, these sources are utilized in its commercial preparation. Completely refined sugar regardless of its source is pure sucrose and therefore has its distinct sweet taste but in spite of the same end product yielded from two distinct sources, the sugar beet and sugarcane industries differ significantly in the procedures adopted for organization and production and each industry has its own typical geography and history. History of Sugar Many centuries ago, the New Guinea people used to harvest wild sugar cane and then suck and chew it for gaining energy. Ancient merchants from Southeast Pacific islands traveled via sea from one island to another and to the dry land of eastern Africa and Asia to merchandize metal tools, animals and food and this trade helped in the spreading of sugar cane. The history of sugar is very interesting as it entails various economic and social aspects as it spread from one region to another. In the European colonies and particularly England, power structures turned it as a luxury commodity which was eventually changed into a necessity and motivated a revolution in lifestyle and diet, especially amongst the working class throughout the Industrial Revolution and the enforcement of capitalism. It has been argued that the contribution of sugar principally to various developed nations has been substantial, and because of the history of sugar in United Kingdom and the reconstituting of the working class, both United States and United Kingdom lost their autonomy over food.2 The history of sugar is strongly aligned with the themes of control and conquest. In the beginning as mentioned afore, sugar cane was only cropped in New Guinea from where it spread to all over Middle East and South Asia during the period between initial century A.D. and 6000 B.C. The extraction of sugar and its purification into crystalline solids was however, likely devised in India and Persia during the period around 400 B.C. to initial century A.D., while the Arab invasion and trade resulted in the introduction of sugar in 700 A.D., in very minute quantities into southern areas of Europe. However, its introduction into the northern areas of Europe was done in the 11 Century A.D., as the northern powers influence was brought into Mediterranean by the Crusaders. Whilst sugar had yet reached Mediterranean, slavery turned into an eminent figure in the production of sugar specifically in eastern Mediterranean and Morocco as the crusades ended, potentially because of shortage occurred in labor supply due to huge number of Black deaths. When sugar production moved to the islands located in the Atlantic Ocean and administered by Spain and Portugal initially and lately by the New World colonies, the utilization of slaves for work became the root upon which the production and consumption of sugar were laid. This happened as the plantation owners became able to produce and extended increased output levels and maintaining huge profits by the implementation of forced labor into the industry. Moreover the increased output levels enhanced the supply to furnish the enhanced demand and ultimately led to a sufficient decline in the prices. This quick shift of sugar from a luxury good to a normal good can thus be attributed to the utilization of forced labor that ultimately benefited the working class as they became able to adopt it in their diet by the ascent of the Industrial Revolution. Interestingly England was turning rich because of slavery and forced labor within the New World, it was adjusting itself up to get prosperous off of working class labor in its native land. The production initiated within the New World settlements in the start of 1700 and afterwards during this whole century and to the initial years of the next century majority of the European demand of sugar was furnished by the exports from Portuguese as well as Spain. However, the European production mainly involved England and France since 1650s with France turning into the largest producer during the mid of eighteenth century and thus sugar tuned out as the main export of these New World settlements. Thus as the trade progressed, two essential triads were constituted. One was the “Rum Triangle” involving the trade of strivers to the West Indies then molasses was traded to England for the production of rum while the prepared rum was then traded to Africa. The second triangle can be called the Atlantic Triangle as it involved the trade of prepared commodities to Africa, the movement of strivers to the New World settlements and the transfer of commodities such as sugar to England. The Atlantic triangle substantiated the Mercantilist model of England as the colonies furnished England with both a sole market of commodities prepared in the homeland and the cash crop while the Rum Triangle attempted to subvert it as it entirely hedged the home country as well as the producers.3 Thus sugar plantations can be thus regarded as an initial kind of industrial production and a substantial factor in the development and progression of capitalism. This notion is based upon two reasons, first the cultivators used to process like the factories used to do in England with great organization levels, excessive time cognizance, exchangeability of labor units, and most essentially the segregation of proletarian from his tools and the production of a commodity and its utilization. Secondly the unbelievable return on invested capital that became possible due to slave labor within the sugar industry the market created by the colonies for commodities and the reconstituting of the proletariat into an urbanized labor force predominately free of restraints which sugar prompted, contributed strong inducement for England to proceed towards a free-market at the cultivators’ cost who became prosperous due to protectionist legislations. Within the England the sugar demand continued to be high from its initial appearance as a scarcity during the eleventh century all the way through its far-flung accessibility during the nineteenth century. The initial utilization of sugar by the English grandeur and royalty has been described by various historians. But with the decline in the sugar prices between the era mid seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sugar and its significances permeated downwardly via English society, ultimately progressing to the under-classes during the 1750s. As the number of consumers increased, new significances were developed and simultaneously old significances were re-cast and absorbed, usually in the figure of ritual tossed back to old usages like marriage cakes with march-pane fruit ornamentations remindful of the old imperial refinements. This infiltration was not plainly induced by market fluctuation or glutting; demand continued to tread with production as individuals always required purchasing more than their affordability. The exponents of capitalism made use of their authority over government to frame such legislations that could ease the spread of sugar usage by expanding its market to downward within the society. Thus the rationing of the poorhouses and navy made it possible specifically through the functionary movement apart from protectionism and towards a free-market economy during the nineteenth century.4 The simultaneous downward infiltration of tea throughout 1700s made a new, crucial manner of economic consumption for the poor since tea dulcified with sugar was enjoyed daily by all individuals with the initiation of nineteenth century. This change in daily diet commemorated a dietetic revolution that was commencing within England and later on took place nearly all over the regions where sugar has been brought in. The consumption of tea dulcified with sugar by the working class may have developed as a class-acquisition objective that was made potential by administrative policy and thus it was translated into a dietary requirement Therefore, while going through the history of sugar, it seems that construct of sweetness is not a natural but an artificially stimulated desire and can be said to be lacking any biological fondness rather it has been inserted into daily routines almost entirely by ethnic convention. Thus the proliferation of sugar within the society can be compared to that of any drug that makes its consumers complacent.5 The industry of sugarcane has had fundamental social and economic consequences on those world regions where it turned out as the main crop. Surely, by chance no other crop has had a similar shaping control on societies. The sugar industry has separated societies, on class lines, amongst the proprietors of the manufacturing plants (either local privileged or frequently present foreign organizations) and the manpower. Besides, wherever sugar plants have been nationalized or are possessed by cooperatives, inequalities in prestige and income exists amongst laborers and managers. Due to the excessive demand for work force that was initially furnished by the African slavery and afterwards by apprenticed workers, and at last by free laborers, multiethnic populations were also created by the industry that usually had composite inner politics. Another significant impact that the sugar industry laid is the bequest of economic dependence. Though the conglomerates are gone, various ex-colonies persist to produce sugar as a basic, depending upon special organizations with their previous rulers which are now the constituents of the European Union, along with the United States, that makes them able to trade their product at a premium over the normal low price that is commanded by sugar generally on the open market. Bibliography Eagen, Rachel. The Biography of Sugar. Crabtree Publishing Company, 2005 Ellis, Ellen Deborah. An Introduction to the History of Sugar as a Commodity, Volume 4. J. C. Winston Company, 1905. Kiple, Kenneth F., and Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè, eds., The Cambridge World History of Food, Part 1. Cambridge University Press, 2000. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Penguin Books, 1986. Sheridan, Richard B. Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775. Canoe Press, 1974. Read More