The first bagasse diffuser, based on the existing technology of Egyptian diffusers, was installed in South Africa. December 12, marked the last sugar harvest in Maui.
After more than a century, Hawaii will no longer produce sugar. Sugar beet and sugar cane yields continue to improve with modern varieties of the plants and advances in agricultural technology. Vermont M. Austin, Harry. History and Development of the Beet Sugar Industry. National Press Building, Washington D.
Robert M. It grows in tropical and subtropical climates. Because sugar cane requires plenty of water and heat, it can only grow in the southern regions of Europe, for instance in Spain, Madeira and Portugal. How did people use the sugar cane's sweet interior before modern sugar production methods were developed? The Indians pressed the slightly cloudy juice from the canes or sucked them like lollipops — a practice that still exists in many countries.
Later, people began boiling the canes' sweet juice to produce crystals, resulting in a kind of solid sugar. According to legend, it was Alexander the Great who first brought sugar canes — or at least stories of them — back to Greece after a military expedition to India. Around BC, his admiral Nearchos sailed from the Persian Gulf along the Indus River, where the sugar canes grew side by side, swaying in the wind.
They cultivated sugar canes in southern Spain and Sicily after occupying these areas. In the Middle Ages, Venice was Europe's main importer and exporter of sugar. Raw cane sugar was imported from India and refined in Venice before being exported to the rest of Europe. Wealthy people actually stored sugar as a form of savings.
One story tells of a bishop who bought sugar from Portuguese merchants for many years and stored it in his chamber. When he died, his possessions were divided between the cloister's monks.
These possessions included the sugar. The monks tasted it expectantly, but grimaced in disgust. It is widely believed that cane sugar was first used by man in Polynesia from where it spread to India. The secret of cane sugar was kept a closely guarded secret whilst the finished product was exported. When the Arab peoples in the seventh century AD invaded Persia in AD, they found sugar cane being grown and learnt how sugar was made.
As their expansion continued they established sugar production in other lands that they conquered including North Africa and Spain. Meanwhile, in , Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral landed in Brazil by accident, and established several sugar plantations. He left Portuguese workers there to run the production of the sugar, and they invented new mill designs and new refinery methods. The need for labour was met by the transatlantic slave trade, which involved 12,, people being shipped from Africa to the Americas between and , for the purpose of facilitating the cultivation of sugarcane.
To amplify the problem, coffee, chocolate and tea started being transported to Europe, increasing the demand for sugar and therefore the need for labour, fuelling the abominable slave trade. Britain and the USA abolished slavery when the overproduction of sugar started to make the practice less profitable. Brazil was the last nation to abolish the use of slaves on plantations in Sugar naturally spread across South America, and soon, due to its flat terrain and tropical conditions, Cuba rose to become the largest producer of sugarcane in the world.
The Cubans adopted modern milling methods, using watermills, steam engines, and vacuum pans. This increased productivity and helped Cuba achieve a rapid production rate. While all the commotion about new technologies and the despicable slave trade was happening across the pond, Andrea s.
Margraff discovered that sugar can also be derived from beet root. The sugar beet industry boomed during the Napoleonic Wars, however as the wars finished, the cheap, slavery-sourced sugar from the Caribbean was regrettably imported throughout Europe once again.
Sugar beet made it to America in , and commercial beet production began in The sugar beet industry then expanded throughout the 20 th century. During this period, sugar production increased and prices fell.
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