Sugar-producing Regions Research Articles

Sugarcane and Rum: The Bittersweet History of Labor and Life on the Yucatán Peninsula

Microhistory can reveal textures of human society often omitted from the grand scope of history. John Gust and Jennifer Mathews undertake to reveal the human dimensions of sugar and rum production on two small mills—Xuxub and San Eusebio—in the Yalahau region of northeast Yucatán. They utilize archaeology to supplement the scant historical record of the region. The fertile area is well watered and marshy and flows north into the isolated Laguna Yalahau. The mills were developed in the aftermath of the mid-nineteenth-century Caste War to take advantage of abundant land, water, and potential laborers. These small mills suffered from their isolation and the vagaries of the international market, falling into ruin in the early twentieth century.Gust and Mathews assert that the study of small-scale production of sugar and rum is marginalized in comparison to the well-known accounts of island-wide staples produced by slave labor in the greater Caribbean. They properly assert that interdisciplinary research is needed to bring to light the countless cases of smaller sugar mills. The history of sugar production is poorly studied in Yucatán, where labor and landholding patterns differed from well-known sugar-producing regions elsewhere. They seek to address these shortcomings with a comparative focus on Xuxub and San Eusebio in particular and on Yucatán as a region. Sugarcane and Rum relies on secondary sources and archaeological studies of the mill sites.The authors divide their slim volume into an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. Abundant figures, maps, and tables support the textual analysis, as do three tables in the appendix. The first two chapters provide a sweeping narrative of cane and sugar from the early sixteenth century through the abolition of slavery. The reader is taken from the sugar fields to the mills and the production of sugar, with an emphasis on the “Jamaica Train” within the broader domain of the plantation. Comparatively less attention is paid to the production of rum or its trade value, though local consumption is discussed briefly. Yucatán earns scant mention in these chapters, save to indicate that the large-scale sugar and rum production that dominated the Caribbean is not duplicated in that area. The authors offer relatively little insight into marginal producers in the Caribbean, which might have had more in common with Yucatán.Yucatecan labor patterns in sugar mills form the backbone of chapters 3 and 4. Enslaved Africans constituted a large percentage of the laborers in sugar estates near Campeche; elsewhere, Maya-speaking Native peoples living in cahob (Mayan communities) labored as part of their tribute obligations. The Bourbon government stimulated sugar production in the puuc (hilly) region to the south of Mérida, initiating a shift from tribute to debt labor and considerable social dissent. The midcentury Caste War shattered Indigenous labor patterns, with thousands seeking freedom to the south and east and hundreds shipped to labor-hungry Cuba. Many people would become the principal laborers in the emerging henequen industry. Others escaped to the conflict-free Yalahau region, where some labored in the handful of mills constructed there.Gust and Mathews conducted surface and trench archaeology of both Xuxub and San Eusebio. Remnants of Jamaica Train edifices are extant, as are chimneys, wells, and buildings associated with distillation. No clear evidence was found of workers' residences. An early twentieth-century manifest of laborers at San Eusebio suggests that very few people worked full-time and thus maintained off-site homes. Building materials, hardware, and items associated with consumption predominate among the materials found in several small trenches and shovel excavations. (These are summarized in an appendix.) Not surprisingly, perhaps, imported items reveal elite patterns of consumption, as was clear among managers and owners of sugar estates throughout the Caribbean.Chapter 5 focuses on alcohol consumption, especially on Mérida's cantinas and the Isla Cancún tourist zone. Aside from broken bottles and possible distillery remains, little insight on alcohol production is available from Xuxub or San Eusebio. Rum from the two mills was likely consumed within the region. People from nearby Yalahau certainly work in Cancún, as poverty drives at least one-third of Yucatán's residents into temporary or permanent wage migration.Yucatecan scholars will be comfortable with the broad sweep of history in Sugarcane and Rum. Others will encounter a narrative that illustrates Yucatán's exceptional experience within the Caribbean. We can all empathize with the difficulties of conducting microhistory in regions such as Yalahau for which there is a paucity of documentary sources. The authors certainly illustrate the distinct patterns of sugar and rum production in Xuxub and San Eusebio, even if the people who produced those commodities remain veiled from historical scrutiny.

Tracing social capital: How stakeholder group interactions shape agricultural water quality restoration in the Florida Everglades

Agricultural nonpoint source pollution remains a pressing environmental problem despite decades of policy and environmental initiatives. Cooperative local actions are a crucial element of effective multilevel governance solutions to such problems, but securing farmer participation for water quality protection remains challenging. Social capital—relations of trust, reciprocity, and shared social norms within and between key stakeholder groups—has been found to enable cooperation for environmentally desirable outcomes. However, the downsides of social capital remain under-examined in multilevel governance, where cooperation within one stakeholder group (bonding social capital) may undermine cooperation with other stakeholders (bridging social capital). Given this important gap, researchers need to examine how bonding and bridging social capital may be formed, maintained, or undermined through stakeholder interactions, and the corresponding environmental consequences.In this paper, we address these gaps through a case study of south Florida’s sugar-producing region, whose drainage water flows south into the Florida Everglades. In contrast to persistent water quality impairment elsewhere, Everglades water quality has improved steadily over the past 20 years. These improvements have taken place under a complex set of governance arrangements that established a mandatory long-term numeric water quality target but which relies on shared compliance among farms. These dynamics encouraged interactions among three key groups of stakeholders—farmers, agricultural extension agents, and state regulators—to implement management changes. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we find that bonding social capital among farmers encourages them to improve their management through a sense of shared responsibility, while also potentially limiting restoration by maintaining perceptions that the regulations are unfair. Bridging social capital helps to legitimize new management efforts, while court-mandated water quality targets incentivize farmers to draw on multiple forms of social capital. We also discuss the relevance of this case for governing agricultural nonpoint source pollution in similar settings elsewhere.

Progress in Mechanization of Sugarcane Farms in Thailand

Sugarcane is an important cash crop of Thailand. With a contribution of 5.5% to the total world production, Thailand is the fourth largest producer of sugarcane next to Brazil, India, and China. During the crop year 2014/15, about 103.7 million tonnes of cane was produced with a national average of about 76.6 tonnes/ha, higher than the world average of 69.5 tonnes/ha and also of those countries ranking higher in terms of total production. The major sugar-producing regions of Thailand are northeastern, central, and northern parts, for which the share of production was 44.59, 28.98, and 26.43%, respectively, in crop year 2016/17. Sugarcane is labor intensive for almost all operations, from land preparation to harvesting. Machinery can help in labor saving and timeliness of operations, improving quality of work, reducing drudgery and operation cost, and more importantly, increasing effective utilization of resources. Sugarcane growers are facing serious problems such as labor shortage and high minimum wage for manual labor. Sometimes, mishandling of a problem may result in other serious consequences. For instance, burning sugarcane to reduce labor requirement in harvesting may lead to other problems. Mechanization can play a vital role in solving problems and in improving efficiency of the present sugarcane production system. This paper presents the progress of farm mechanization in sugarcane cultivation in Thailand through on overview of the machinery used in different farm operations based on farming practices as well as their impact and also factors influencing the extent of mechanization in this crop. Future prospects of mechanization are also discussed.

Interwoven

This article explores the linkages between the slave trades to Spanish and Portuguese America during the Iberian Union (1580–1640). Drawing upon legal suits, it argues that Brazilian port cities were both destinations and hubs for the re-exportation of West Central African captives to Spanish colonies. Vessels frequently “stopped over” in Brazilian ports following the Atlantic crossing due to navigational exigencies and to avoid paying the higher duties on captives levied in Spanish American ports. This article demonstrates that the integration of the slave trades to Spanish and Portuguese America facilitated the spread of slavery well beyond sugar-producing regions.

An analysis of sugar production trends in Ukraine and an analytical forecast of its development

Sugar production is one of the most important branches of the agro-industrial complex in Ukraine. At the moment, the situation in the sugar market is unstable. To a significant extant, this is due to poor efficiency of control of the sector. Scientifically-based forecasting of production trends is an important methodology for raising administrative effectiveness. The objective of this work is the analysis of changes in trends in the performance of sugar production in Ukraine and the improvement of the technical approach to the forecasting of sugar production in the regions, and the leaders in the sugar production sector. Since 2012, in all the sugar producing regions of Ukraine, there has been a decline in sugar production and sugar beet growing. The main factor for the reduction in sugar production is the excess of its supply over demand due to a trend of reduced need in the population. Further expansion of production, notwithstanding the reduced demand in the domestic market, is possible through sugar export growing. It requires: increasing of product quality, bringing it in to line with European standards, and providing domestic sugar competitiveness in the export market. Further development of sugar production in Ukraine requires State support to the sugar production sector. Scientifically-based forecasting of the production indicators is essential for the development of State and Regional support programmes. Sugar production trend in Poltava region, one of the sector leaders in Ukraine, has been researched. A conclusion has been drawn on the efficiency of the exponential forecasting to assess the total future production.

Noctuidae s. l. (Lepidoptera) from sugarcane fields of SW Iran

A study on the Noctuidae which include key pests in most of the world’s sugar-producing regions was donein four sugarcane producing, agro-industrial areas in the province of Khuzestan, southwestern Iran. Night samplings were made by light trap during 2007 and 2008. A total of 52 noctuid species belonging to 10 subfamilies were recorded. Amongst these, 22 were new to Khuzestan and one, Archanara polita (Walker, 1865) is newly reported for Iran. It is concluded that cropland weeds that act as host plants for many of these noctuids help to support biodiversityin the monoculture of sugarcane productions in southwestern Iran.

“A Horde of Brigands?” The Great Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811 Reconsidered

Most historians, even specialists in the field of slavery, know little about the largest and bloodiest slave insurrection in United States history. The revolt broke out in a sugar-producing region in the Territory of Orleans in 1811, one year before Louisiana's statehood. A disciplined army of rebels composed of men and women, African-born slaves and creole slaves, mulattoes and blacks, skilled slaves and field hands, marched down the east bank of the Mississippi River in quickstep toward New Orleans. Stunned eyewitnesses observe slaves in military formation with drums beating and flags waving. At least some of the leaders of the revolt were uniformed, mounted on horseback, and wielded rearms. Charles, a mulatto slave driver allegedly from Saint-Domingue (Haiti), led the uprising. The 1811 insurrection raises big questions about the causes and content of slave rebellion. Why did the insurrection break out when and where it did? How were slaves of different types from different plantations mobilized to revolt? Was the Louisiana insurrection influenced by the slave revolution in Saint-Domingue? Or were the causes of the revolt local? Why did free-people of color assist whites in suppressing the movement? What were the goals of the rebels? Summary justice led to the grisly executions and mutilations of scores of slaves. Did torture and terror have the desired results for the master class?

Sugar Prices, Labor Income, and Poverty in Brazil

This paper assesses the impact that a potential liberalization of sugar regimes in OECD countries could have on household labor income and poverty in Brazil. The authors first estimate the extent of price transmission from world markets to 11 Brazilian states to capture the fact that some local markets may be relatively more isolated from changes in world prices. They then simultaneously estimate the impact that changes in domestic sugar prices have on regional wages and employment depending on worker characteristics. Finally, they measure the impact on household income of a 10 percent increase in world sugar prices. Results suggest that workers in the sugar sector and in sugar-producing regions have better employment opportunities and experience larger wage increases. More interestingly, households at the top of the income distribution experience larger income gains due to higher wages, whereas households at the bottom of the distribution experience larger income gains due to movements out of unemployment.

Securing Sugar: National Security Discourse and the Establishment of Florida’s Sugar-Producing Region

This article explores the critical role that discourses of national security and national food self-sufficiency played in the establishment of Florida’s sugar-producing region. The primary theoretical engagement is with work in economic and cultural geography that analyzes the material and discursive construction of commodities and the regions that produce them. Attention is directed toward the regulatory effects of discourse, as manifested through the establishment of state institutions, rules, and practices that regulate global sugar production and trade. The approach is historical, demonstrating the persistence of national security discourses over several decades as the broader political-economic and geopolitical contexts for U.S. sugar production shifted. These contextual shifts presented the sugar industry and its political supporters with discursive opportunities for framing state protectionism in the global sugar trade as vital to national security. The empirical foundation of this analysis has two methodological components, the first of which documents the role and form of discursive practices. The second component addresses the broader and larger-scale political-economic contexts for the discursive practices of Florida sugar interests—specifically a century of shifting global geopolitics and the United States’s role in international affairs.

Agricultural trade liberalization, multifunctionality, and sugar in the south Florida landscape

This paper explores the applicability of the concept of “multifunctionality” to the south Florida sugar-producing region. Multifunctionality is being promoted in the European Union in response to neoliberal trade pressures in agriculture. It is seen as a way to address social and ecological concerns such as farm abandonment and biodiversity loss through domestic agricultural policies that conform to the GATT/World Trade Organization. I have two objectives in this paper. First, I seek to investigate multifunctionality as one response to neoliberal pressures for agricultural reform. In doing this, I identify two types of multifunctionality, a “weak” and a “strong” version. Second, I want to explore the possibility for multifunctionality to serve as a vehicle for resistance to GATT/WTO in other regions. I do this through a study of arguably the most maligned agricultural zone in the world, the sugar-producing region of south Florida. The specific geographic focus is the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), the federally designated, 700,000-acre zone south of Lake Okeechobee that is home to the Florida “Sugar Bowl.”

The Atlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade

An evolutionary economic perspective on technical change and adjustment in cane harvesting systems in the Australian sugar industry

Australian sugar‐producing regions have differed in terms of the extent and rate of incorporation of new technology into harvesting systems. The Mackay sugar industry has lagged behind most other sugar‐producing regions in this regard. The reasons for this are addressed by invoking an evolutionary economics perspective. The development of harvesting systems, and the role of technology in shaping them, is mapped and interpreted using the concept of path dependency. Key events in the evolution of harvesting systems are identified, which show how the past has shaped the regional development of harvesting systems. From an evolutionary economics perspective, the outcomes observed are the end result of a specific history.

Alternative U.S. and EU Sugar Trade Liberalization Policies and Their Implications

This study analyzes the impacts of alternative trade liberalization policies in the United States and the European Union (EU) on the U.S. sugar industry. A global sugar policy simulation model was used for this analysis. The study results indicate that the U.S. sugar industry may be able to survive if both the United States and the EU liberalize their sugar trade. However, if only the United States eliminates its sugar programs, all U.S. sugarproducing regions would be threatened.

Sugar and the origins of modern Philippine society

The sugar industry has been a vital part of the economic and social life of modern Philippine society. John A. Larkin examines how both the Filipino people and colonizing forces participated in this industry and how two types of society emerged: one based on plantation agriculture, the other on tenant farming. Negros Occidental and Pampanga, the most important sugar-producing regions, are the focus of Larkin's study. Examining the rise of the elite plantation-owning class, the subsequent gap between the extraordinarily wealthy and the impoverished, and the nation's dependence on the international market, Larkin concludes that the sugar industry resulted in stunted economic development, wide cleavages among the Filipino people, and an imbalance of political power - effects that are still felt today.

Formation of a Sugar Region in the Late 19th Century Negros, Philippines

This paper attempts to depict the formation of a sugar-producing region in Negros, emphasizing the significance of grasping the structual change of a regional economy in the islands of Panay and Negros and of exploring its key elements. Chapter I discusses the trade structure (local and foreign) of Panay and Negros; chapter II analizes the immigration pattern from Panay to Negros (both of the upper and lower class levels) and chapter III outlines the formation of a sugar-producing region in Negros, focusing on the rise of haciendas (landed estates) and the emergence of wage laborers. Major findings are summarized as follows.(1) After the opening of the Iloilo port, foreign trade began to play a dominant role in changing the regional economy in Panay and Negros. The major export product was sugar produced in Negros, while import products were mostly British textiles.(2) Chinese mestizos composed a large group of hacenderos in Negros, who were formerly textile merchants in Iloilo province. They took haciendas by landgrabbing and later began to acquire private landownership.(3) Hacienda-labor consisted of resident or migrant laborers and share tenants. Most of them were immigrants from neighbouring islands such as Panay and Cebu.In conclusion, by the end of the 19th century three provinces of Panay and the western part of Negros had already composed an hacienda society, where the sugar export industry played a vital role for its economy.

Making a Living during the Dead Season in Sugar-Producing Regions of the Caribbean

Recent technological changes have intensified the seasonal labor requirements in sugar cane production in the Caribbean. Much more labor is needed during the harvest and grinding season than in the period between harvests, known as the "dead season." This paper examines the means by which seasonally-employed cane workers gain a livelihood during the dead season, bearing in mind that the means used must be such that the workers will again be available to the sugar producers the next harvest season. It is concluded that in most areas a livelihood is provided either by minifundia or by supplemental occupations outside the sugar industry. Which of these alternatives prevails depends upon the demographic conditions that existed when the technological innovations responsible for the dead season were introduced. A third alternative is present in socialist Cuba, where nonsugar workers are made temporarily available for harvest season labor. All three patterns can be seen as alternative structural responses to conditions imposed by the ecology of sugar cane production in the Caribbean area.