The Raw Material
Sugar beet is a root crop of temperate lands in Eurasia and America that in recent years has also become an important winter crop in North Africa and the Middle East. Obviously, it has adapted to a wide range of climatic and soil conditions, even growing well in the short summers of Finland, the dampness of Ireland, the high altitudes of Iran and Sichua, and the hot, dry Imperial Valley of California. It benefits from irrigation and from long hours of daylight. Differences in temperature, day length, and rainfall do, of course, influence the sugar content of the roots. It is a biennial, storing food in its swollen roots to carry the plants through the first winter and the process of setting seed in the second year. Farmers harvest the roots that contain the sugar at the end of the first year’s growing season, thus interrupting the plant’s natural cycle. Toward the polar limits of the sugar beet’s range, low summer temperatures and extended length of the day encourage some plants to set seed prematurely during the first year, resulting in poor development of the roots. Plants that do this are known as “bolters,” which if present in significant numbers, lower the yield of sugar from a field.
Cultivated and wild beets belong to the genus Beta, of the family Chenopodiaceae.The species Beta vulgaris L. includes the common beet, the mangelwurzel, and the sugar beet. All three have descended from wild sea-beet, Beta maritima, by human selection. The Romans used beets, probably Beta maritima, as food for both humans and animals and thereby selected for its value as a vegetable. Cultivators in medieval and early modern Europe developed the roots for animal feed, and since the eighteenth century, the capacity of Beta vulgaris to store sucrose in its roots has been the focus of breeding. Selection in Germany increased the sugar content of the roots from 7 percent in the eighteenth century to between 11 and 12 percent by the 1850s.The sugar content is now up to 20 percent. In addition to this success, researchers also breed sugar beets to discourage “bolting,” to resist disease, and for shape and fibrosity to help in harvesting and milling. Sugar beets provide an example of a rapidly domesticated plant that is still being modified and improved to suit a particular purpose (Bailey 1949: 353; Campbell 1976; Bosemark 1993; Evans 1993: 101–3, 107, 109).
The main stages in the extraction of sucrose from beet have remained basically the same over the last century or so, but there have been improvements in the efficiency of each stage. On arrival at the factory, the beets are washed to remove soil and stones and then sliced into thin, smooth pieces known as “cossettes.” The aim is to maximize the surface area of the beet so as to facilitate the diffusion of the sucrose.The cossettes then enter a countercurrent diffuser through which they move against the flow of a hot water extractant. This operation transforms about 98 percent of the sugar from the beet into a raw juice. The juice, in turn, is purified, reduced by evaporation, and crystallized, and the crystals are separated in centrifuges from the mother liquor. Formerly, beet sugar factories produced a raw sugar that was further treated in a refinery; now many factories produce a white sugar that is 99.9 percent pure (Vukov 1977: 13, 421, 426–7; Reinefeld 1979: 131–49; Bichsel 1988).
More than 90 percent of the revenue of the sugarbeet industry comes from sugar. Alcohol production is the best financial alternative to making sugar, but researchers have been unable to generate other byproducts that are very lucrative.The lime sludge from the purification process is sold for fertilizer. Citric acid and baker’s yeast are produced by fermenting the molasses, and the exhausted cossettes can be used for animal feed (Blackburn 1984: 338–9;Tjebbes 1988: 139–45).
Historical Geography
The sugar-beet industry is only two centuries old. In 1747, a Berlin professor of chemistry, Andreas Marggraf (1709–82), succeeded in extracting a modest quantity of sugar from beet. Although he publishedthe results of his research in French and German, he did not put them to commercial use (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 95–9). However, his student Franz Carl Achard (1753–1821) was more practical. He improved the raw material by breeding the cultivated fodder beets for sugar content, and he evolved the white Silesian beet, which is the ancestor of all subsequent sugar-beet varieties (Oltmann 1989: 90, 107).
In the years around 1800, Achard was active in promoting the beet industry, and in 1801, with the financial assistance of the King of Prussia, he began to build what may have been the world’s first sugarbeet factory (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 113). Although it was not a financial success, other Prussians followed his initiative, building several small factories in Silesia and around Magdeburg. Russia was the second country to enter the industry: Its first sugar-beet factory opened in either 1801 or 1802 (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 118; Munting 1984: 22), and the first factory in Austria opened in 1803. In the beginning, the French limited themselves to experiments, as did the Dutch, whose Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture offered a prize for extracting sugar from native plants (Slicher van Bath 1963: 276–7; Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 99–119).
These experimental and very small scale beginnings of the sugar-beet industry were given a considerable boost during the Napoleonic wars. In 1806, Napoleon’s ban on the import of British goods and Britain’s retaliatory blockade of his empire greatly reduced the supplies of cane sugar that reached continental Europe. Napoleon encouraged the production of beet sugar as a substitute, and landowners in France and the countries north of the Alps tried to respond.
The paucity of seed and unfamiliarity with the requirements of the crop led, however, to a disappointing supply of beet, part of which rotted on the way to the factory because of poor transportation. The number of factories illustrates the extent to which policy overreached reality: In France, in the season that spanned 1812 and 1813, only 158 factories of the 334 for which licenses had been given were actually in working order (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 139).With the low yields of beet per hectare, low sucrose content, and a disappointing rate of recovery of the sucrose in the factories, beet sugar could not compete with cane once imports from the West Indies resumed after 1815.The beet industry disappeared from Europe except in France where it hung on until better times (Slicher van Bath 1963: 277; Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 134–45).
Those times began in the late 1830s and gathered force throughout the middle of the century, benefiting from improvements in both field and factory. In France, P. L. F. Levèque de Vilmorin (1816–60) was particularly successful in breeding varieties of beet for greater sugar content, with improvements continuing after his death (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 190–1). In the first generation of sugar-beet factories, the juice was extracted by grinding the beet in animal-powered mills and then placing the pulp in presses (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 148). In 1821, however, another Frenchman, Mathieu de Dombasle (1777–1843), proposed the procedure of slicing the beets and extracting the sucrose in a bath of water. He called the method maceration, but it is now known as the diffusion process. In 1860, Julius Robert (1826–88) became the first to employ it (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 150, 176).
Diffusion replaced the mills and presses and remains to this day a standard part of the processing of sugar beet.Vacuum pans were first used in 1835 in a beet factory in Magdeburg, and centrifuges became part of factory equipment during the 1840s (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 152, 172). An additional development encouraged the revival of the beet industry – the arrival of cheap Russian grain in western Europe where, from the 1820s onward, it caused a fall in grain prices.Western European farmers who had been growing grain now required a substitute crop, and beet was a good candidate. It could fit into the agricultural rotation, growing on land that would previously have been left fallow, and its leaves and roots provided feed for animals. This, in turn, made possible an increase in livestock numbers, which meant more manure. If the roots were sold to a factory, they earned the farmer cash, and the pulp could also be used for feed (Galloway 1989: 131).
Despite the advantages of sugar beet to the agricultural economy and improvements in its raw material as well as factory technology, the beet industry nevertheless was still not competitive with cane. Rather, its revival in the 1830s, and its continued growth, depended on government protection through tariffs on imported cane sugar and incentives of one sort or another, such as subsidized exports.The 1902 Brussels Convention attempted to bring some order to a scene characterized by a protected beet industry and a complaining sugarcane industry, yet protection for beet sugar remains in place (Chalmin 1984: 9–19; Munting 1984: 21–8; Perkins, 1984: 31–45).
The revival of sugar-beet cultivation began in northern France, where it had never entirely died out, and continued in Prussia and the other German states during the 1830s, in Austria-Hungary in the 1840s, and in Russia in the 1850s. By the 1850s, Germany had become the most important producer of beet sugar, responsible by the end of the century for rather more than a third of the European total. By this time, beet cultivation extended from southern Spain in a curve arching north and east through France, the Low Countries, Germany, and eastern Europe, and into the Balkans, Russia, and the Ukraine. It also extended into Denmark and southern Sweden. The industry was particularly important in northern France, in the Low Countries, around Magdeburg in Germany, in Bohemia, and around Kiev in the Ukraine. Great Britain was noticeably absent, refusing to subsidize a beet industry of its own, but rather buying sugar, whether cane or beet, wherever it was cheapest.
Sugar beet remained a predominantly European crop throughout the twentieth century. In the years approaching 1990, Europe accounted for about 80 percent of the world’s production of beet sugar, with 40 percent of that production coming from the European Union. Since 1991, production in the countries of the former Soviet Union has lost ground, but this is probably a temporary situation.The geography of the European beet-sugar industry has also remained remarkably constant: Those regions that were important producers at the beginning of the twentieth century remained so at its end. There has been some modest expansion on the periphery into Ireland and Finland, and since the 1920s, Great Britain has finally developed a sugar-beet industry of its own.Two considerations led to the change in Britain’s policy towards beet:World War I had revealed the difficulties of relying heavily on continental European producers of sugar and the awkwardness of such dependence. Moreover, sugar beet had the potential of being a useful cash crop for farmers in the agricultural depression that followed the war.
The North American sugar-beet industry dates from the 1880s and has increased steadily, producing nearly 4 million tonnes of sugar a year.The industry is overwhelmingly located in the United States. Beet is grown in the Midwest, but the bulk of the crop grows on irrigated land in the West. In Asia the industry became significant only in the 1920s and has seen rapid expansion since the 1960s (Baxa and Bruhns 1967: 192–201, 221–2, 262–94; International Sugar Organization 1994: 279–85).
Like the cane industry, the sugar-beet industry invests heavily in research.The breeding of new varieties, the methods of harvesting and planting, and improvements in factory technology are all important foci of attention.
The Contemporary Sugar Industry
Production
At the beginning of the twentieth century, beet-sugar production exceeded that of cane sugar, with the total combined production of centrifugal sugar about 12 million metric tonnes raw value (mtrv). However, today cane accounts for most of the sugar produced (about two-thirds). Total combined production reached 100 million mtrv in the mid–1980s and rose to 120 million mtrv by the mid–1990s.This expansion has been fueled by increases in consumption of about 2 percent a year, resulting from a growing world population and improving standards of living in some of the less-developed countries of the world. Noncentrifugal sugar also continues to be an important sweetener: Statistics are almost certainly incomplete but show production in excess of 15 millions tonnes at present.
The sugar industry in some countries is highly protected. The United States, for example, maintains a domestic price for sugar well above the world price and controls the amount of sugar imported.The European Union protects its beet growers, and the industry in India is carefully regulated to control production and domestic prices. Clearly, the interventionist traditions in the industry established long ago remain very much alive.
India is the world’s major producer of cane sugar, and its sugar industry continues to grow. Annual centrifugal production has reached 16 million mtrv, which includes nearly l million tonnes of khandsari sugar. India is also the world’s major producer of noncentrifugal sugar, accounting for perhaps as much as two-thirds of the total. Practically all of this sugar is consumed in India; only rarely, after exceptionally good harvests, are small quantities exported.
Brazil’s production has increased rapidly in recent years to reach 13 million mtrv, plus some small-scale production of noncentrifugal sugar known as rapadura. The country has the advantages of abundant land and a good climate, and its production is divided between the home sweetener market, fuel alcohol for automobiles, and exports. Brazil has the ability to direct sugar to exports or to fuel alcohol, depending on the world prices. Cuba and Thailand compete for the third and fourth rankings among the world’s sugar producers. Cuba’s annual production in the late 1980s was around 8 million mtrv, but collapsed to half this amount when the fall of communism in Eastern Europe brought about a loss of its major markets.The Cuban industry’s ability to recover remains a major question. Thailand has only recently become an important sugar producer. Its industry is expanding, and production is now in excess of 6 million mtrv, of which two-thirds is exported.
The European Union is responsible for nearly half of the world’s beet sugar, about 18 million mtrv annually. Germany and France are the main producers, although Ukraine and Poland produce close to 4 million and 2 million mtrv, respectively. By and large, the beet industry in eastern Europe suffers from poor management and a lack of investment in machinery, and because much land is still publicly owned. The region has enormous potential, however; several western European companies have taken advantage of privatization schemes to buy factories and begin the work of modernization.The United States, China, and Turkey are also major beet-sugar producers. The United States and China are among the relatively small number of countries which, because they extend across a wide range of climatic zones, are able to grow both cane and beet.
Trade
International trade in centrifugal sugar amounts to about 30 million mtrv, or about one-quarter of the total world production, meaning that most sugar is consumed in the country where it is produced. Much of the trade takes place under special arrangements, and only a small portion of the sugar traded internationally sells at the free-market price.
The European Union buys sugar at a preferential price from the former colonies of its member states; the United States allocates import quotas to a large number of countries. Cuba bartered sugar for oil with the former Soviet Union, and now barters with Russia on a more limited scale.These arrangements have had what might seem curious consequences. The European Union is both a major importer (1.8 million mtrv annually) of sugar from its former colonies and a major exporter (five million mtrv annually) because of its beet production. Some countries (Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana, and the Dominican Republic) export all, or nearly all, of their sugar at a premium price to meet contractual arrangements with the United States and the European Union, and they import at world market price for their own consumption. Refineries also import raw sugar, only to export it again in a practice known to the trade as tolling. This accounts for the presence of the United States on the list of sugar exporters. Quotas limit its imports, but tolling permits the use of otherwise surplus refining capacity and provides employment.
About 75 countries export sugar and about 130 import it – the numbers fluctuate a little from year to year. Most trade in small amounts, and many are minimal participants dealing in less than 10,000 tonnes a year. But the European Union, Ukraine, Cuba, Brazil, Thailand, and Australia all export more than 1 million mtrv annually.Together, these latter countries account for by far the greater part of sugar exports. By way contrast, the European Union, Russia, Canada, the United States, Japan, and South Korea all import more than 1 million mtrv a year apiece, with Malaysia and Algeria not far behind. Such activities provide certainties, insofar as there can be any, in the sugar trade.The major sources of uncertainty are India and China. They may appear unexpectedly on the market as either importers or exporters if their policies change or if their policy makers misjudge the market situation. Weather is also an uncertainty. Poor or excellent harvests in a number of countries can cause shortages or create surpluses.
In most countries there are stocks of sugar held against sudden shortages and increases in price. The world stocks-to-use ratio in the mid–1990s was considered high, at about 19 percent (USDA 1996: 9). This translates into low free market prices because there are reserves to draw on in case of a sudden shortage. Sugar traders and some governments carefully monitor production, import, export, and consumption data in each country and calculate the buildup and/or drawdown of stocks with a view to predicting demand and prices. There is a very active trade in sugar futures.
Competition
For several hundred years, sucrose in the Western world has been without a serious competitor in the sweetener market, but recently this has changed.The leading caloric competitor is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is a liquid sweetener made from plants (especially maize) that contain a sufficient amount of starch, although sweeteners are also made from sweet potatoes and tapioca in Asia and from wheat and potatoes in Europe. HFCS appeared in the 1970s, during a period of high sugar prices, but continued in production after sugar prices fell. Sugar usually has a price advantage over HFCS, and HFCS is not always a good substitute for sugar. Bakers and manufacturers of confectionery and cereals prefer sugar because of its “bulking, texture and browning characteristics” (USDA 1995: 18). HFCS is most competitive in the manufacture of soft drinks.The United States is by far the largest producer of HFCS, with the European Union, Canada, Korea, Argentina, and Taiwan making very modest quantities. HFCS has captured rather less than 10 percent of the sweetener market and, in the immediate future, is not expected to expand beyond the liquid sweetener market in a few countries (USDA 1995: 15–20).
Low-calorie, high-intensity sweeteners have gained in significance since the 1980s and claim a small percentage of the sweetener market. Saccharin and aspartame are perhaps the best known.They are attractive to consumers concerned with diet and can compete in price with sugar. Both are used to sweeten coffee, tea, and other beverages (“table-top use”), but aspartame, benefiting from the demand for diet soft drinks, has received approval for a wider range of uses in the European Union, the United States, Canada, and Japan. This branch of the sweetener market is still evolving. Low-calorie sweeteners are used together in some applications, but they also compete with one another and, of course, they compete in the soft drink market with HFCS and sugar (Earley 1989;USDA 1995: 23–4).
The fact that the manufacture of sugar is one of the oldest industries in the world gives the sugar industry a special place in the cultural history of food, but other characteristics also give it a particular interest. It is unique among agro-industries in that it has both tropical and temperate sources of supply of its raw material. It has been responsive throughout its history to developments in science and technology and today continues to invest in research. Government intervention is a long-standing tradition. The importance of sugar to the finances of European imperialism was a great incentive for the colonial powers to attempt to manage the international trade in sugar for their own benefit. Governments continue to intervene to this day with subsidies and protective tariffs to defend vested interests.
The sugarcane industry has had profound economic and social consequences on those parts of the world in which it became a major crop. Indeed, perhaps no other crop has had such a formative influence on societies. The industry has divided societies, along class lines, between the owners of the factories (either local elites or – often nowadays – foreign companies) and the work force. Even where the factorieshave been nationalized, or are owned by cooperatives, disparities exist in income and prestige between managers and laborers. Because of its great demand for labor – satisfied first by African slavery, then by indentured workers, and finally by free laborers – the industry also produced multiethnic populations that frequently have complex internal politics. Another legacy is economic dependency. Although the empires are gone, many ex-colonies continue to grow sugar as a staple, relying on special arrangements with their former rulers (now members of the European Union), as well as with the United States, that enable them to sell their sugar at a premium above the low price that sugar generally commands on the open market.
The dilemma of dependency has had no easy resolution. Sugarcane producers have little bargaining power, given the oversupply of their product, and alternatives to the cultivation of sugarcane that can provide a better level of employment and income have been difficult to find. Dependency is keenly felt by the populations of the cane-growing countries, and where this sense of frustration is joined with the memory of slavery, as in the Caribbean, sugarcane is a very problematic crop.
By J. H. Galloway in "The Cambridge World History of Food", Editors Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas, Cambridge University Press,USA, 2000 excerpts p.444-448. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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