Food Staples: Sugarcane
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Sugarcane, or sugar (how long does sugar last?) cane, or simply cane, is a species of tall perennial true grass plant from the genus Saccharum and is used for the production of sugar. The plant grows 6 to 10 feet tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sucrose. The sucrose (a form of simple sugar) accumulates in these stalk internodes. Cane belongs to the Poaceae family, maize, wheat, rice, and many other important foraged crops fall under the same family.
History
The two early species of sugarcane used were Saccharum officinarum first cultivated by the Papuans in New Guinea, and Saccharum sinense by Austronesians in Taiwan. They were both primarily used for domesticated pig feed. Before I go into cultivation allow me to explain the BP dating format. BP stands for before present. The 'present' is set to the year 1950 AD which is when radiometric dating started becoming popular. So 1000 BP would be the equivalent of 1000 before 1950 AD or 950 AD, or in the example below 5500 BP would be the year 3,550 BC.
S. Sinense originates in Southeast China and Taiwan. Its been gown there since around 5500 BP. it was one of the major crops grown by the Austronesian people. It was later replaced by the sweeter S. Officinarum after its spread to Southeast Asia. Cultivation of S. Officinarum began in around 6000 BP in New Guinea. From there it spread west to Marmite Southeast Asia then to India where it came into contact with the Austronesians and hybridized with Saccharum spontaneum, a tall species of grass native to the Indian Subcontinent.
By the time S. Officiarum had become the primary sugarcane crop, between 3000 and 3500 BP, it spread eastwards into Polynesian and Micronesia and westwards into China and India with Austronesians voyagers where traders hybridized it further with other species of sugar cane. From there it spread further west into Eurasia and the Mediterranian.
Although the exact time is unknown, it is widely believed sugar first started being refined into granules in 350 AD. Some evidence suggests earlier. India introduced sugar across the Abbasid Caliphate in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, and Andalusia. By this time sugarcane was grown in almost every village in the Mesopotamian region of ancient Western Asia.
Christopher Columbus first bought the plant to the Americas on his second voyage, initially to the islands of what is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it formed on side of a triangle trade of new world raw materials, along with European goods like rum, and African slaves. Sugar grown in the Caribbean was sold to Europe or New England where it was made into rum, profits from these sales would then used to buy manufactured goods, which were in turn transported to West Africa and bartered for slaves. The slaves were then transported back to the Caribbean to work as sugar farmers, then sold to pay for more sugar.
Labour of production of raw sugar (how long does raw sugar last?) or sugar boiling was also left to slaves often in harsh and hot conditions. Tall circular or rectangular furnaces made of bricks or stones housed up to 7 copper kettles, each one smaller and hotter than the last. There was an opening on the bottom to add fuel and remove ashes. The crushed cane poured into the largest kettle with lime to remove impurities, then boiled. Workers then skimmed the juice and channeled it into smaller kettles until it reached the smallest, where it made the final transition from liquid to a syrup. The syrup was left to cool in troughs and then shoved into barrels and placed into the curing house.
Compared to the likes of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, the US had a late start in its production of the crop. The first plantation opened in 1607, Jameson Virginia. Sugarcane arrived there in 1607 where they failed to make it grow. By the 1860s, around the time of the civil war over half of all the sugar in the US was a Cuban import, the rest from Louisiana. Louisiana was the first American State that successfully cultivated and exported sugar to the US. This was due to the cane farmers being immigrants who sought refuge from the Haitian revolution.
On October 7th, 1886 a royal decree officially abolished slavery in Cuba following 3 brutal wars between Cuba and Spain for their independence. The first was the Ten Years' War which spanned from October 10th, 1868 to the 28 of May 1878, the second named The Little War from 26th of August 1879 till September 1880, and the Cuban War of Independence from February 24th, 1895 to February 15th, 1898. Cuba gained independence from Spain in October 1886 which effectively ended slavery. Since the vast majority of slavery in Cuba went towards sugar, this could have gone well or very badly for the US because it interfered with over half of its nationwide sugar supply.
Instead, the US strategically took control of 2/3 of all the sugar production on the Island, this led to the practical takeover of Hawaii in 1893 by the US in the interests of sugar so those producers had free range to American markets. Since the majority of producers were Americans, it worked out pretty well. From there sugar in the US took off like a rocket. Large carved Statues made from giant sugar blocks, the invention of cotton candy or 'fairy floss' at the time, the invention of the mason jar for canning where sugar was a primary ingredient, candy companies, Ice cream, and finally into all the refined foods we know today, although today high fructose corn syrup (how long does corn syrup last?) is the dominant sweetener in the food market.
Cultivation
Cultivating sugarcane requires tropic and subtropic temperatures and requires at least 24 inches of annual moisture. They're some of the most efficient photosynthesizers in the plant kingdom. They can convert up to 1% solar energy into biomass. In prime growing conditions, like those in Central and South America, up to 15 kilograms of cane can be grown per square meter. Cultivation of the crop has mostly ceased in Hawaii until 2016 when the last sugar plantation shut down. These days you'll find the majority of smaller plantations downs south in southeast Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. Cane can't tolerate frost so you wouldn't find it straying too far from the equator.
Sugarcane grows in all forms of soil. Whether it's acidic, dry, cracked, or barren, all it needs is sunlight and a good irrigation system with consistent, adequate water. Because of this, you'll also find sugarcane in unlikely deserts like Pakistan and Egypt, and other countries with top tier irrigation systems.
Although sugarcane can grow some seeds, the more common reproduction method is planting by stems, in more developed countries like the US, this is done by billet planting. Once planted, sugarcane is harvestable over and over, sometimes for years, but every time a harvest takes place the plant grows weaker and lesser than the time before, so they're often replanted after 2 or 3 harvests. Mechanical harvesting also mostly takes place in developed countries on huge plantations. Smaller plantations like those in France use hand-harvesting methods, they're replanted after 5-10 harvests.
Hand harvesting is a very labor-intensive and dangerous job. Not only does it involve setting a field on fire and swinging large, often rusty machetes, but it's also done under the harsh rays of the sun. The field is set on fire fist to burn off any outer leaves and scare off dangerous animals. This burns off tonnes of dead leaves and releases tonnes of pollutants into the air, which can cause a problem for residents close to these fields. Afterward, laborers take their machetes into the field and cut down the stalks at their base. The root system and base are kept intact so the cane plant can grow once again. A skilled harvester can cut down up to 1100 pounds of cane in an hour. Many sugar cane workers (over 20,000) have died due to CKD (chronic kidney disease) likely due to long hours in the heat with inadequate fluid intake.
Mechanical harvesting doesn't require you to set the field on fire first. The machine cuts the stalks at their base, strips off their leaves, then cuts them into segments. Byproducts of the stripped canes (dead stems and leaves) act as mulch for the next planting season. A mechanical harvester can harvest up to 100 tonnes per hour. Sugar cane requires quick harvesting because it begins to lose its sugar from the moment it's cut.
There are a number of pests and pathogens that infest sugar. The cane beetle is a primary pest that feeds on the roots of the crop. Some are moth and butterfly larvae, sugarcane borer, rice borers, armyworms, leaf-cutting ants, termites, and spittlebugs. They are usually controlled by a number of pesticides. Bugs and contaminated soil can also spread pathogens into sugarcane. sugarcane grassy shoot disease caused by Phytoplasma, whiptail disease or sugarcane smut, pokkah boeng caused by Fusarium moniliforme, Xanthomonas axonopodis bacteria causes Gumming Disease, and red rot disease caused by Colletotrichum falcatum. Viral diseases affecting sugarcane include sugarcane mosaic virus, maize streak virus, and sugarcane yellow leaf virus.
Processing
Sugar processing is down in two primary steps. The first takes place locally to the sugarcane fields, and the seconds happen more locally to you. The former is milling and the latter is refining. Milling involves crushing the sugar cane under heavy iron rollers. Some of the other byproducts of milling are bagasse (the dry, pulpy residue leftover from milling), molasses (how long does molasses last?) (thick, sticky syrup that comes from boiled down sugar cane juice), and filter cake (residue left ver from filtering cane juice). Bagasse is primarily used as a fuel source and cane juice filter cake is used in animal supplement production, fertilizer, and sugar cane wax.
Molasses has many more uses than most people realize. There are 5 common categories of molasses; blackstrap molasses (how long does blackstrap molasses last?), characterized by its strong flavor, which is widely used as a supplement, in animal feed, and is a primary ingredient in the production of rum, ethanol, and citric acid. (how long does citric acid last?)
Production
Global production of sugarcane in 2018 was 1.91 billion tonnes, with Brazil producing 39% of the world total, India with 20%, and China and Thailand producing about 6% each (table). In 2018 sugarcane crops covered a total landmass of 26 million hectares. The average worldwide yield of sugarcane crops for the same year was 73 tonnes per hectare, led by Peru with 121 tonnes per hectare. The theoretical possible yield for sugarcane is about 280 tonnes per hectare per year, and small experimental plots in Brazil have demonstrated yields of 236 280 tonnes of cane per hectare.
