The story of sugar

How the features of the modern world were first convened in the manufacture of one of the first capitalist products.

In the introduction to their book A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet, Jason W. Moore and Raj Patel discuss the impact of the use of wood as fuel in sugar production upon the great forest of trees covering the island of Madeira. They write:

In 1419, Portuguese sailors first sighted an island just over 600 kilometres west of the African coast of Morocco. They called the island Ilha da Madeira, "island of wood." The Venetian traveler and slaver Alvise da Ca' de Mosto (Cadamosto) reported in 1455 that "there was not a foot of ground that was not entirely covered with great trees." By the 1530's it was hard to find any wood on the island at all. There were two phases in the clear-cutting of Madeira. Initially, the trees had been profitable as lumber for shipbuilding and construction. The denuded forest became acreage for wheat to be sent to Portugal starting in the 1430s. The second, more dramatic deforestation was driven by the use of wood as fuel in sugar production.

Sugar was first produced from sugarcane plants in northern India sometime after the first century CE. There are two centres of domestication for sugarcane: one for Saccharum officinarum by Papuans in New Guinea and another for Saccharum sinense by Austronesians in Taiwan and southern China. 

Papuans and Austronesians originally primarily used sugarcane as food for domesticated pigs. The spread of both S. officinarum and S. sinense is closely linked to the migrations of the Austronesian peoples. Saccharum barberi was only cultivated in India after the introduction of S. officinarum.

From islands of Southeast Asia, S. officinarum was spread eastward into Polynesia and Micronesia by Austronesian voyagers as a canoe plant around 3,500 years ago. It was also spread westward and northward by around 1,000 BC to China and India by Austronesian traders, where it further hybridized with Saccharum sinense and Saccharum barberi. From there it spread further into western Eurasia and the Mediterranean.

India, where the process of refining cane juice into granulated crystals was developed, was often visited by imperial convoys (such as those from China) to learn about cultivation and sugar refining. By the sixth century AD, sugar cultivation and processing had reached Persia, and from there that knowledge was brought into the Mediterranean by the Arab expansion. "Wherever they went, the medieval Arabs brought with them sugar, the product and the technology of its production."

Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest in the fifteenth century carried sugar south-west of Iberia. Henry the Navigator introduced cane to Madeira in 1425, while the Spanish, having eventually subdued the Canary Islands, introduced sugar cane to them. In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus carried sugarcane seedlings to the New World, in particular Hispaniola.

Moore and Patel then examine how the biological necessities in the treatment of the sugarcane impose particular organisational factors:

Humans, primates, and most mammals love the taste of sugar. Since the discovery of sugarcane in New Guinea in 6000 BCE, humans have understood the biological necessities of its treatment. There is a peak time to harvest the cane, when it is turgid with sweet juice - but then the grass is thick and difficult to cut. Once chopped, the can can be coaxed to yield its greatest quantity of sugar for only forty-eight hours. After that the plant starts to rot.

Moore and Patel then foreground how the methods employed in the sugar plantations on Madeira generated the core organizing ideas of modern manufacturing:

In the 1460s and 1470s, farmers on Madeira stopped growing wheat and stated growing sugar exclusively. A lot more sugar. The sugar frontier quickly spread, at first to other islands in the Atlantic, then on a massive scale to the New World. Like palm and soy monocultures today, it cleared forests, exhausted soils, and encouraged pests at breakneck speed.

To reach such speeds, production had to be reorganized, broken into smaller, component activities performed by different workers. It simply isn't possible to get good returns from workers who are exhausted from cutting cane and then spend the night refining it. New management and technologies helped move sugar manufacture from edge runner mills (big pestle and mortar machines) and small holdings to two roller mills and large-scale slave production in São Tomé. Centuries before Adam Smith could marvel at the division of labour across a supply chain that made a pin, the relationship between humans, plants, and capital had forged the core ideas of modern manufacturing - in cane fields. The plantation was the original factory.

And every time the sugar plantation found a new frontier, as in Brazil after São Tomé and the Caribbean after that, the factory was reinvented - with new machines and new combinations of plantation and sugar mill.

By 1933, Java was the world’s leading sugar producer, with more than 200 factories processing sugar cane and selling their output to the world. A product of colonialism, the industry had got its start in the early 19th century after the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean led to European sugar firms looking for new locations for plantations in Asia.

Sugar factory 'Kartasoera ". 1906

Following on from this startling conclusion concerning Sugar production as the model for capitalist manufacturing, Moore and Patel are moved to mention that:

"The only thing missing from this story, of course, is the humans who did the work. In Madeira, they were Indigenous People from the Canary Islands, North African slaves, and - in some cases - paid plantation labourers from mainland Europe.

In Java the so-called Cultivation System involved the practice of corvée, a form of unpaid, unfree labour, which is intermittent in nature and which lasts limited periods of time: typically only a certain number of days' work each year.

Javanese farm workers cutting sugarcane in 2016

The Wikipedia article on Corvée omits a reference to the Dutch colonial administration imposing this feudal practice. In effect, this was a system that imported a European anachronism, to oppress the Javanese peasantry while overlaying the traditional practices of a Javanese tributary system, in order to maximize profit through the expolitation of cheap labour.

These days farmers of sugarcane in Indonesia are struggling in a globalised economic environment.

News Desk The Jakarta Post

Jakarta   Tue, August 7, 2018 

A House of Representatives’ lawmaker criticized the Trade Ministry’s policy that requires the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) to purchase sugar from local farmers at a benchmarked price – Rp 9,700 (67 US cents) – per kilogram, while at the same time allowing the import of raw sugar.

“Farmers won’t gain any profit from the benchmark sugar price of Rp 9,700 per kg,” said Nasril Bahar, a member of the House’s Commission VI overseeing trade, investment and industry affairs, on Monday as reported by tribunnews.com.

“It will be a great dilemma when sugar prices are high and Bulog is forced to buy sugar from farmers at high prices. Meanwhile, the Trade Ministry also continues to allow import of raw sugar.”

The ministry’s policy to allow large-scale import of raw sugar was contradictory to the sugarcane farmers’ interest, said Nasril, adding that such a policy had caused difficulty to both farmers and Bulog.

He said only importers of raw sugar and entrepreneurs who processed raw sugar into white crystalline sugar benefitted from the government’s sugar policy, while local farmers suffered because the price of sugar they produced was often higher than the price of imported sugar.

Cheap nature - from boom to bust

Centuries earlier the Madeira sugar industry went from a boom that turned to bust because turning cane stalks into sugar used prodigious amounts of fuel. "At its zenith, Madeira's industry used five hundred hectares (1,236 acres) of forest each year to feed the boilers that kept the tributes of sugar flowing to Europe's courts."

Yet after the boom the bust. Output peaked in the first decade of the sixteenth century, and the furnaces sputtered out by the 1530s, the trees having been stripped from the island. Production crashed . . . Europe's wealthy ate the sugar, and sugar ate the island.

The sugar industry in Madeira, having collapsed, just as it has also been reduced significantly in Java: "Capitalism didn't leave Madeira - it reinvented itself. 

 Revitalisation? Industrial heritage and the heritage industry

The remaining sugar industry in Indonesia consists of a small number of factories, all using steam-powered machinery installed over a century ago. This is a situation that has prompted a call for the conservation of what remains of a once thriving industry, and transforming this industrial legacy into the material for a potential new "culture" industry, with tourism as its main focus.

The IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science website hosts this paper, Conservation of 18th Century Java Industrial Heritage, by Krisprantono, from the Faculty of Architecture and Design, Soegijapranata Catholic University, Semarang, Indonesia.
The Abstract says:  

Industries and trading have important roles in the development of the city. Sugar industries in Java developed by the Dutch were influenced by Industrial Revolution. Sugar trade worldwide was related to transportation that included train, railways and bridges and lately came to harbor. Industrial activities, such as industrial heritage, steam engines, locomotives and carriages, railway heritage, bridges, and anything related to industrial culture played a critical role in Indonesia’s economic and social development that began in the late 18th century. The significance of study is that trade activities influenced urban development that also included architectural development. These activities generated a rich heritage of built structures, artifacts and records. But this heritage is at risk due to the growth and modernization of the Indonesian economy. Financial pressures result in the demolition of obsolete facilities located in urban areas, equipment is sold for scrap, and records are discarded. The purpose of the study is conservation of industrial building equipment and emplacement surrounded area. The method of the study was by historical method by tracing sugar history; agriculture, process of production, architectural record, trading activities and spread out of sugar industries in Java. Preservation of industrial heritage could play an important part in attracting visitors, as an alternative and complement to the island's more conventional tourists attractions.

A little way down the article the author refers to examples in Europe of how cultural heritage has a potential function as part of urban renewal programmes.

The development of industrial archeology has had many results. In former Western Europe the former industrial area is conserved to serve as a tourist destination, the object of a former industrial building has a new function as museums, art galleries or other new functions appropriate for economic development. In the small town of Saltaire near Leeds, England  many industrial buildings are still equipped with chimneys  made office and apartment prestigious (Figure  1). Trains with locomotives with steam engine power are turned on again as an attraction for tourists. In France some ancient railway stations were made into museums.

Sugar Factory Revitalization 
Revitalization of Regions is an effort to revive a region by providing new functions to generate the vitality of existing and degraded areas and buildings but not yet fade through physical and non-physical interventions in the fields of economy, environmental management, heritage  management, socio-cultural engineering and  institutional development.  According to Tiesdel in Revitalizing Historic Urban Quarters (1996) revitalization is: Improving the quality of the property to address certain dimensions of that property obsolescence. Owners and occupiers of buildings can address the dimensions of obsolescence that are within their abilities, especially the structural, functional and image dimensions. There are redevelopment, renovation and re-function. The Revitalization approach should be able to recognize and exploit the potential of the environment (history, meaning, location uniqueness and place image). With the support of revitalization plan control mechanisms, it should be able to raise the strategic issues of the region both in the form of social and cultural activities and economic and physical character of the region.

The existence of tourist areas for recreational facilities will provide economic sustainability to be able to support the existence of Gondang Baru Sugar Factory. The plan includes a museum of sugar that is passive and active for the benefit of education  and preservation of cultural heritage in the form of sugar processing industry using 19th century technology in the form of steam engine.  Revitalization of the area as an effort to save and preserve the area of Sugar Mill Tasik Madu Plant in Karang Anyar Surakarta previously owned by Mangkunegaran has been done by the PTP. The  location of the emplacement is used as a tourist area while the sugar production process is still running. This activity contributes to the preservation of redevelopment, renovation and refunction but the work of this process does not involve archaeologists, so that the value of authenticity decreases and many materials that are not original are replaced with new material.

Conclusion

In fact, all sugar factories in Java are highly feasible to be able to revitalize both those that are still in production and that stopped. All stakeholders must support each other. Archaeologists should play a great role in this activity to preserve the value of the authenticity of industrial cultural heritage. The surrounding community will definitely support this effort if this revitalization has a positive impact for the surrounding community. The Pecangaan Sugar Factory near Jepara is one of the oldest factories in Java now still operating with other functions as a sack factory where at least the existence of the building can still be maintained. Revitalization of sugar factories is not only for tourist sites but also other facilities. For instance, the area of Sugar Factory Colomadu is no longer operable but it can be  used  as  other  facility  where  its  machines  can  be  stored  in the museum. The Olean Sugar Factory near Situbondo East Java is a small but very attractive sugar mill. All facilities are still complete and original from factory building, housing, machine, locomotive along with its rail and old munggur tree. If the revitalization is carried out correctly, it is not impossible that this area can be proposed to be 'World Heritage Industrial Site'. All can be done as long as 'no damage' in the sense of maintaining the authenticity of the area and the building of cultural heritage. 

Capitalism transforms the obsolescence of property into an already vested capital resource, capable of generating income via "post-industrial", "cultural capital" based economic strategy. Industrial scrap becomes material for the "museum without walls" - rubbish transformed into artefacts.

Invisible and cheap labour

When we visit a museum we may find that it is often a place full of the material culture, of "ways of living", that have been made impossible. And, conveniently for some, the human work that actually makes culture verges from the indistinct to the invisible. How can already expended human labour become visible in a museum context? How can it be valued?

The value accumulated by the Dutch Treasury during the period of the Cultivation System where the corvée system of forced labour applied, a form of unpaid, unfree labour, partly in lieu of the taxation of workers, who were nevertheless taxed heavily from 1840-59, was a total of 300 million guilders. This would by today's value stand at about € 3.17 billion.

What was exchanged for their work and for their taxes paid to a colonial administration?

Europeans were one-half of one percent of the population, but they garnered 60% of the taxable income. The Chinese were two percent and had 20% of the income. The other 20% of the income went to the Indonesians, who were 97% of the population.

What was the benefit to the Dutch population in the netherlands over these two decades?

Culture is our business

The economic strategy of "revitalization" through "cultural resources" relies, to a greater rather than a lesser extent, on the business of tourism. And so capitalism comes to reinvent itself, along with the relics of the sugar industry, and in the context of global climate change, as tourism.

What is the carbon footprint of global tourism? 

Nature Climate Change published this article on The carbon footprint of global tourism 07 May 2018. The Abstract says:

Tourism contributes significantly to global gross domestic product, and is forecast to grow at an annual 4%, thus outpacing many other economic sectors. However, global carbon emissions related to tourism are currently not well quantified. Here, we quantify tourism-related global carbon flows between 160 countries, and their carbon footprints under origin and destination accounting perspectives. We find that, between 2009 and 2013, tourism’s global carbon footprint has increased from 3.9 to 4.5 GtCO2e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Transport, shopping and food are significant contributors. The majority of this footprint is exerted by and in high-income countries. The rapid increase in tourism demand is effectively outstripping the decarbonization of tourism-related technology. We project that, due to its high carbon intensity and continuing growth, tourism will constitute a growing part of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Two of the authors of this report, Arunima Malik Lecturer in Sustainability, University of Sydney, and Ya-Yen Sun Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland, joined The Conversation on the same day.

The carbon footprint of tourism is about four times larger than previously thought, according to a world-first study published today in Nature Climate Change.

Put together, global tourism produces about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, much more than previous estimates.

Tourism is a trillion-dollar industry, and is growing faster than international trade.

To determine the true emissions produced by tourism, we scanned over a billion supply chains of a range of commodities consumed by tourists. By combining a detailed international trade database with accounts tracking what goods and services tourists bought, we identified carbon flows between 160 countries from 2009 to 2013.

Our results show that tourism-related emissions increased by around 15% over that period, from 3.9 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) to 4.5Gt. This rise primarily came from tourist spending on transport, shopping and food.

World map showing bilateral embodied carbon movements. In 2013, international travel was responsible for 23% of the global carbon footprint of tourism.

We estimate that our growing appetite for travel and a business-as-usual scenario would increase carbon emissions from global tourism to about 6.5Gt by 2025. This increase is largely driven by rising incomes, making tourism highly income-elastic and carbon-intensive.