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Sugarcane or Sugar cane (Saccharum) is a genus of between 6 and 37 species (depending on taxonomic interpretation) of tall grasses (family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae), native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Old World. They have stout, jointed fibrous stalks 2 m – 6 m tall and sap rich in sugar. All the species interbreed, and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids.
About 107 countries grow the crop to produce 1,324 million tonnes (more than 6 times the amount of sugar beet produced). The largest producers are Brazil, India, China, and Pakistan, accounting for more than 50% of world production.
Sugar Cane is a type of grass originally from southeast Asia. The thick stalk stores energy as sucrose in the sap. From this juice sugar is extracted by evaporating the water. Crystalized sugar was reported 2500 years ago in India. Around the eighth century A.D. the Arabs introduced sugar to the Mediterranean and it was cultivated in Spain. It was among the early crops brought to the Americas by Spaniards.
Sugar cane was grown extensively in the Caribbean and still is on some islands. In colonial times sugar was a major product of the triangular trade of New World raw materials, European manufactures and African slaves. France found its sugar cane islands so valuable it effectively traded Canada to Britain for their return of Guadeloupe, Martinique and St. Lucia at the end of the Seven Years’ War. The Dutch similarly kept Suriname, a sugar colony in South America, instead of seeking the return of the New Netherlands (New Amsterdam). Cuban sugar cane produced sugar which received price supports from and a guaranteed market in the USSR; the dissolution of that country forced the closure of most of Cuba’s sugar industry. Sugar cane is still an important part of the economy in Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Grenada, and other islands. The sugar cane industry is a major export for the Caribbean, but it is expected to collapse with the removal of European preferences by 2009.
Sugar cane production also greatly influenced the modern history of many tropical Pacific islands, most particularly Hawaii and Fiji. In these islands, sugar came to dominate the economic and political landscape after the indigenous societies were invaded by Europeans and Americans. The Europeans and Americans also promoted immigration from various Asian countries for workers to tend and harvest the crop. Sugar-industry policies eventually established the ethnic makeup of the island populations that now exist, profoundly affecting modern politics and society in the islands.
Brazil is a major grower of sugar cane, where it is used to produce sugar as well as to provide the alcohol used in making gasohol and biodiesel fuels.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarcane
Posted by joaobambu on 2006-05-03 21:24:41
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