Sugar Trade Research Articles

The environmental and social opportunities of reducing sugar intake

Sugar is the largest agricultural crop by mass and has seen a rapid increase in consumption around the world. There are widespread public health efforts to curb sugar intake through targeted policies given its association with noncommunicable diseases. Although curbing sugar intake aligns with sustainable diets that meet essential environmental and health targets, such a shift may be challenging from a political economy perspective. Utilizing sugar for other purposes such as the production of microbial protein, biofuels, and bioplastics, or using sugar lands to grow other food items, or rewilding could provide health and environmental win–wins that could be more politically palatable. Here, we explore several potential scenarios to illustrate the option space from which national and international stakeholders could choose locally appropriate pathways for alternative utilization of sugar or its lands. While beneficial, such alternative pathways would require the integration of environmental, economic, and health policies to provide a smoother diet transition that reduces stakeholder tensions. Given the trade in sugar as a commodity crop, international approaches that compensate sugar producers for avoided production or incentivize them for redirecting sugars to other uses will be needed. Such approaches could borrow concepts from Just Transition Partnerships that have been applied to energy system transitions in ensuring a transition for major exporters of sugar cash crops across low- and middle-income nations.

Exploring the Role of the Dutch East India Company in Making Taiwan a Center for the Sugar Trade From 1624 to 1662

Exploring the Role of the Dutch East India Company in Making Taiwan a Center for the Sugar Trade From 1624 to 1662

Transnational networks of human resources and knowledge in East Asia: a case study of Taiwan merchant Wang Xuenong (1870–1915) and his trading company

Abstract Taiwan is an island and trade has always been the locomotive of its economic development. From the 1620s to the 1960s, cane sugar was Taiwan's most representative export commodity. Yet little attention has been paid to the business strategies of sugar traders and the changes in their thinking. How did the Takow (Kaohsiung) merchants who first went to Japan and Hong Kong to conduct cross-border trade in person learn about international trade and build a network of human resources that crossed borders, especially after the 1870s? And how did they face the great changes of an era in which tradition and modernity were intertwined, so that, following the regime transfer in the 1890s from the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese empire, they were able to expand their business territory and become major sugar merchants in southern Taiwan? This article examines the career of Wang Xuenong—a well-known sugar merchant in Taiwan during the Meiji period (1868–1912). It attempts to explain, from the perspective of cross-cultural knowledge transfer and human resource strategies, why and how sugar merchants such as Wang, who had gone to Japan in the early years of the Meiji Restoration for purposes of cross-border trade, introduced a trading company system that incorporated a mixture of East Asian and Western elements. It further investigates how they expanded their business from the sugar trade into a wider commercial domain that included mechanical rice milling and steamship transport. Finally, it looks at how their actions affected a transformation of Taiwan's commercial culture from the late Qing Dynasty to the early days of Japanese rule, and the historical significance of these changes in Taiwan's transitions towards industrialisation and modernisation.

Štukature iz zadnje četvrtine 18. stoljeća u Palači šećerane u Rijeci

This paper provides a detailed analysis, for the first time, of the stucco decorations in the representative salons on the second floor of the Sugar Refinery Palace in Rijeka. Despite being an extremely important group of secular stuccos, it has, until now, lacked a thorough iconographic and stylistic analysis and contextualization. Furthermore, no models or masters who produced them have been identified. The Sugar Refinery Palace, specifically its administration building, served as the headquarters of the Privileged Trieste-Rijeka Company, founded in Trieste in 1750 to establish sugar trade in the Habsburg lands. Administration and production were relocated to Rijeka in 1752, when the central industrial complex was organized, and the Administration building was erected. Following the devastating fire of 1785, the building underwent reconstruction, and it was raised in height while acquiring a new representative staircase. It was assumed that the architect behind the renovation was Andrea Menini from Treviso, and recently discovered archival data confirm his presence in Rijeka during 1786. The stone decoration, part of the restoration, also reveals the contribution of Sebastiano Petruzzi, the most prominent sculptor and builder in Rijeka at the time, and his workshop. Between 1786 and 1789, the period to which the frescoes in the western salon with architectural capriccios have been dated, the decoration of the central Ceremonial Hall and the two flanking salons on the western and eastern sides along the façade was executed. The central hall features Corinthian pilasters with beams and is covered by a cloister vault decorated with war trophies and four figural medallions. Although the exact iconography of these compositions has not been determined, it is assumed that they depict scenes from the lives of Roman emperors, possibly the reigns of two “bad” emperors - Domitian and Vitellius - who met violent death, and their “good” counterparts Vespasian and Titus. The overall decoration of this hall reflects late Baroque or Josephine Classicism characteristic of the enlightened Joseph II Habsburg’s reign (1780-1790), manifesting renewed enthusiasm for the art of ancient Rome, its rationality, simple austerity, and cold sublimity. Therefore, the decoration of this hall incorporates numerous models derived from ancient and Renaissance traditions, reshaped in the manner typical of the second half of the 18th century. Notably, the early neo-Classical style in Italy and in Habsburg Tuscany during the time of Joseph’s brother, Grand Duke Peter Leopold II, played a crucial role, with his Florentine residence in Poggio Imperiale, decorated by two stucco masters, brothers Giocondo and Grato Albertolli. In the lateral salons, the finely detailed decoration is still executed in the spirit of late Rococo and painted in soft pastel tones. The cornice under the vault features stucco cameos depicting famous ancient statues, such as Venus Callipyge or Cupid and Psyche, while the ceiling is adorned with war trophies collaged from various graphic templates of the time. Based on stylistic and formal analysis, the stuccos from Rijeka can be associated with the brothers Clemente (Montagnola, 1758 - Kaštel Lukšić, after 1810) and Giacomo (Montagnola, 1763-1838) Somazzi from the Swiss Canton of Ticino. They left a significant stucco oeuvre in numerous churches across Kvarner, the Croatian Littoral, and northern Dalmatia during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The stuccos from Rijeka would be their earliest and only preserved secular work. It is plausible that the brothers worked as part of a larger workshop in Rijeka before starting their career as independent masters in the last decade of the 18th century. It may have been the workshop of Sebastiano Petruzzi, where Clemente is mentioned as an associate and partner in Rab during 1790.

Assessing the Competitiveness and Trends of Indian Sugar in Global Market: A 1999- 2018 Analysis

Sugar is one of the most produced and traded commodities in the world. India is the second-largest producer and largest consumer of sugar in the world. Therefore, the study was conducted to assess the position of Indian sugar in the international market. The study was based on Time series data of years 1999-2018. To assess the trend, trend analysis was done and, for appraising the competitiveness, export performance ratio and nominal protection coefficient was computed. The cubic model was found best fit for all the particulars considered in the models. Results revealed that production, import quantity and value of sugar had increasing trend while export quantity, value, unit price of export and import of sugar exhibited fluctuating trend. The trade of Indian sugar was found inconsistent in the decadal analysis but overall had a relative advantage in the international market with an EPR vale of 1.11. The higher NPC value of 1.02 pointed out a matter of concern as the Indian sugar was non-competitive in the international market.

Pickwick and Scrooge: Two Excellent Men of Business

Abstract: Created six years apart, Scrooge and Pickwick exhibit extraordinary similarities in their backgrounds and plot trajectories. Scrooge and Pickwick start out as relatively isolated businessmen who make journeys of discovery and learn lessons in compassion. Their metamorphoses are deepened through their relationships with loyal employees. This article explores the scant details about the two men's business lives, including Scrooge's role as a creditor and his connection to the Second Royal Exchange in London, which burned down in January 1838. It also contextualizes Pickwick's ties to the South American sugar trade and the enslaved labor that contributes to his great wealth. The article speculates on the parallelisms between Scrooge and Pickwick and the effects of seeing them both within the scope of their identified business practices.

Study on The Chinese Sugar Trade of Asia sea Area in the Pre-modern Period

Study on The Chinese Sugar Trade of Asia sea Area in the Pre-modern Period

Cuba & Soviet Union: Trade Pattern Pitfalls (1970-1988)

This article analyzes the interaction between the Soviet Union and Cuba, the bilateral trade in sugar and nickel ores as well as direct assistance of the USSR to the Castro regime. The scholars investigate the dependence of the Cuban economy on economic cooperation with the Soviet Union and indicate that the pattern of bilateral trade was extremely harmful to Cuba since Havana took advantage of the artificial steady demand for the main components of Cuban exports from the USSR and other Comecon countries. The researchers point out that such a model of trade was one of the key factors that doomed the State’s economy to a severe economic crisis of the 1990-s and left Cuba behind other Latin American economies even the extremely depended on a particular resource export, ones such as Chile and Venezuela in terms of economic development.

Estimating the unintended impact of the North American free trade agreement on U.S. public health

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was introduced in 1994 between Canada, Mexico, and the United States to encourage trilateral trade. In 2008, an unrestricted reciprocal sugar trade agreement, was implemented between Mexico and the United States as part of NAFTA, which led to a significant decrease in the United States’ sugar price. However, critics argue that free trade agreements that reduce trade barriers on products such as sugar threaten public health. This study uses the synthetic control method to investigate the causal impact of the unrestricted sugar trade agreement on sugar consumption and diabetes prevalence in the United States. First, we show that sugar consumption in the United States increased by an average of 16% annually after the agreement was signed, corresponding to 5240g per capita. Second, we show that the crude prevalence of diabetes increased by an average of 1% annually in the United States after the agreement was signed, with an increase of 1% and 2% for men and women, respectively. This unintended consequence of NAFTA has had an estimated economic cost of $324.37 million annually.

The downhill journey of the Java sugar economy in the Netherlands Indies (Later Indonesia) from the late 19 th century to the mid-20 th century

Java Island was the second largest world cane sugar producer and sugar exporter to the international market next to Cuba for more than four subsequent decades around the turn of the 19th century. The economy of Java had shown a miracle development through high production efficiency and international market supply between 1870 and the 1920s. During this period colonial growth was characterized by liberal and increasingly developmental policies. However, the Java sugar market faced constraints and continued to be checked by crises in which Indonesia actually fell behind the rest of the world economy. Thus, this paper examines how and why the Java sugar industry quickly declined after 1930 from a position of hegemony in the international sugar economy to a purely domestic Indonesian market level. The paper argues that the interplay between international factors and domestic challenges resulted in a significant decline in the Java sugar economy. These factors were the global economic crisis; the Second World War and the Japanese occupation; stiff market competition; the impact of the international sugar agreement; the Indonesian revolution and the post-revolutionary crisis; complemented by policy and institutional problems. This confluence of internal and external causes precipitated the decline of the Java sugar sector and the problem of sustainable sugar production in Indonesia. Within three decades, Java’s prestige and fortune in the global sugar trade were destroyed. Political upheaval following WWII had initially crushed the sugar sector, but after 1968, Indonesia made significant efforts to revitalize it.

Policy and action plan to increase national sugar production

As a national strategic commodity, sugar sufficiency has become one of the government’s priorities. However, until recently, Indonesia is still experiencing a deficit in sugar due to production and consumption gaps. This paper aims to assess the performance of national sugar production and consumption and the government’s efforts to overcome the shortage. This study used primary and secondary data. Descriptive qualitative and Grid analysis was employed, supported by a literature review from various relevant sources. The study results show that during the 2015–2020 period, national sugar consumption was higher than its production. The low national sugar production was due to (1) a decrease in sugarcane area, (2) stagnation of sugarcane yield and sugar content, (3) not optimal process of modernization and revitalization of sugar mills, and (4) policies related to trade and prices of sugarcane and sugar. Out of nine policy options to increase sugarcane yield, the use of sugarcane seedlings of high-yielding varieties has become a priority policy. An action plan is required to support such policy, i.e., structuring of variety; coordination, technical guidance, socialization, and extension; and government assistance programs, especially capital aid.

Алико Данготе – самый богатый человек Африки

The article is devoted to the description of the business career and economic activities of Aliko Dangote, who for many years has been the richest person on the African continent and one of the richest people in the world, included in their first hundred. Aliko Dangote's business success cannot be attributed to chance or luck. This is a representative of a family business empire, which was founded by his maternal great-grandfather, Alhasan Dantata, a North African merchant whose activities were tied to strong and long-term relationships with European business partners. The activity of his great-grandson Aliko Dangote is connected with the production and trade of sugar, rice, food products of daily demand, however, Aliko Dangote brings super profits from his company for the production and trade of cement and other building materials. It should be noted that it is this person who will soon own the largest oil refinery in the world.

Evaluation of global gridded crop models in simulating sugarcane yield in China

Sugarcane provides around 80% of the world's sugar production and is also one of the most efficient bioenergy crops. China is the third largest sugarcane-producing country in the world, and skillful simulation of the sugarcane yield in China is thus vital for global production and the trade of sugar and ethanol. Global Gridded Crop Models (GGCMs) are commonly used to predict global and regional crop yield as well as to assess the impacts of climate, environment, and agronomic management changes and feedbacks of crop growth. So far, two GGCMs (CLM5-crop and LPJmL) have been able to model sugarcane, but their performance in China remains unknown. In this study, the authors comprehensively evaluated the sugarcane yield simulations of these two models for the period 1980–2009 using the crop yield statistics collected from the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Results showed that these two models substantially underestimate the multi-year average sugarcane yield, with simulated yields less than one quarter of observations. In addition, CLM5-crop successfully simulates the spatial pattern, while LPJmL does not. In terms of temporal variability, the two models can reproduce the significant upward trend for the national average and in most provinces, but underestimate the magnitude. They also fail to simulate the pattern of interannual variability. The two models underestimate the sugarcane yield partly because they incorrectly set the sugarcane yield coming from the grain as other grain crops, which is inconsistent with the fact that the stem is harvested.摘要中国是全球第三大甘蔗生产国, 中国甘蔗产量模拟可服务于全球食糖和乙醇的生产和贸易. 全球格点作物模式CLM5-crop和LPJmL已实现对甘蔗的模拟, 但它们在中国的模拟能力未知. 本文评估结果表明: 两个模式均严重低估了甘蔗产量, 模拟均不足观测的1/4. CLM5-crop能有技巧地模拟产量的空间分布特征, 而LPJmL不能. 两个模式均不能合理模拟产量的年际变化, 且低估了产量的上升趋势. 模式低估甘蔗产量的部分原因是模式假设收割的是甘蔗的穗而非茎.

The Provincial Chinese and the Progress of Iloilo Textile in Nineteenth-Century Philippines

Abstract This paper examines the role of provincial Chinese in the progress of Iloilo textile in nineteenth century Philippines. It argues that the provincial Chinese played a pivotal role in Iloilo’s urban morphogenesis, which is contrary to the prevailing view that Iloilo’s progress has been spurred only by Western global enterprise, especially with the emergence of the sugar trade primarily operated by the British. The facets of Iloilo’s pre-colonial and colonial trade, specifically the textile business run by the Chinese, served as tour de force that brought about internal transformations in the local economy prior to European trade expansions in the overseas colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century. This study falls under the domain of urban history but with special emphasis on the interplay of material culture with that of the political economy of port cities in Asia during the nineteenth century. Its research framework has been drawn from advocates of microhistory. The framework employs privileging first-hand accounts and primary sources to explore historical experiences of a particular sector of the society (provincial Chinese), tracking clues through multiple sources to unearth hidden connections (provincial Chinese and urban progress), reconstructing webs of social networks (provincial Chinese with Ilonggos, Spaniards and other Europeans), and scaling analysis to highlight specific historical contexts or perspectives provincial Chinese and the textile trade). Many of the information in the study has been gathered through extensive library and archival research, especially nineteenth century records and documents of Iloilo Chinese found in the National Archives of the Philippines (nap) and other libraries and archives in the country. Data analysis has been undertaken through clustered themes and sub-themes that revolved around textile trade and the participation of provincial Chinese on it.

Ancestral Voices, Highland Homecomings and High Society: The Lochbuie Family of Mull, c. 1855–1920

No history of the Scottish diaspora in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would be complete without taking account of the provenance and disposal of repatriated wealth. A case study is the family saga of the Maclaines of Lochbuie, whose estates lay on the island of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. Our account begins with Donald Maclaine (1816–1863), the twenty-second laird, who, as a partner in the Batavia (Jakarta) mercantile business of Maclaine Watson, made his fortune from the trade in sugar cultivated by forced peasant labour in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). It was the profits from this trade that he used to repurchase the family’s ancestral lands that had been forfeited to their creditors a decade earlier. Donald Maclaine’s enthusiasm for the Highlands was inherited by his Indies-born son, Murdoch Gillian Maclaine (1845–1909), the twenty-third laird, whose life and times, together with those of his wife, Marianne Schwabe-Maclaine (1850–1934), form the main focus of this paper. That enthusiasm extended to the patronage of Gaelic culture and to Highland revivalism in general, but it was also under his stewardship that his family’s cosmopolitan lifestyle revived the less welcome tradition of the ‘luxury trap’, wherein expenditures incurred in London high society also had to contend with declining rentals during a prolonged agricultural depression. Financial pressures of this kind appear to have compelled the twenty-third laird to redevelop Lochbuie in accordance with a late Victorian reimagining of the Highlands as a sporting estate. This was not a gamble that paid off, however, and a once-off infusion of colonial wealth proved inadequate to sustain Lochbuie, which was irretrievably lost to the family during the (brief) tenure of Kenneth Maclaine (1880–1935), the twenty-fourth laird, despite his somewhat unconventional efforts to bolster the family fortunes by taking to the boards in New York and the UK.

Molecular Characterization of Early Maturing Sugarcane Clones Using Microsatellite Markers

Sugarcane is an important cash crop of the entire world including India. It alone contributes to 75% of the worldwide sugar trade. Molecular markers are powerful tools and provide the basis for the estimation of genetic variability to start reasonable breeding program. Microsatellite markers have unique ability to determine the extent of genetic divergence among sugarcane genotypes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic divergence of 12 early maturing sugarcane clones using 11 SSR markers. A total 55 alleles were found during the amplification of the primers out of which 21 alleles were found unique and 34 alleles were shared. The number of shared alleles per locus ranged from two out of five alleles in the case of primer NKS 1 and nine out of ten alleles in NKS 34. Similarly no. of unique alleles per locus ranged from one out of ten alleles in NKS 34, three out of six alleles in NKS 57. The primer pairs NKS 1 and NKS 8 generated considerably greater percentage of unique alleles. The PIC values revealing allelic diversity and frequency among the genotypes varied from 0.034 in case of NKS 48 to 0.778 in case of NKS 9 with an average of 0.549. Pair-wise combinations of CoSe15451 and CoSe15452 showed the highest similarity with the value of similarity coefficient (0.890). The lowest value of similarity coefficient was found to be 0.490 in the pair CoBln15501 and CoSe01421. The dendogram based on SSR marker analysis grouped the 12 sugarcane clones into four clusters which shows the CoSe15451 and CoSe15452 clones had maximum similarity and CoBln15501 and CoSe15452 clones had maximum diversity between each other.

The Effects of Trade Governance on Sugar Trade and Its Landscape of Policy Practices in Tanzania

Trade governance is important for the efficient implementation of trade policies that support and controls most of the global value chains (GVCs) trade in African countries. Poor trade governance leads to misalignment of trade policies and affects the sustainability of the agricultural commodities supply chains. This study used cross-sectional survey data of 375 randomly selected sugar supply chain actors in Tanzania to evaluate the level of trade governance in Tanzania and ascertain its effects on the sugar trade. Exploratory (factor analysis) and confirmatory (weighted least square regression) models were used for data analysis. The major findings are that governance affects the sugar trade with the magnitude of its effects being felt differently between farmers and traders. It shows further that abrupt trade policy change significantly ( p < .05) reduces sugar trade by almost half (47.7%) and lowers the overall level of efforts to invest within the sugar supply chain. Ensuring trade policies are stable and predictable will increase trade by allowing forward contracting and investments. It is also important to create awareness of institutions and organizations managing the sugar supply chain by encouraging transparency in trade policy administration and practices for improving trade governance.

90 millas: Relaciones económicas Cuba–Estados Unidos, 1898–2020

90 millas: Relaciones económicas Cuba–Estados Unidos, 1898–2020

PERBANDINGAN METODE ANALISIS CLUSTER HIRARKI PADA DATA MARGIN PERDAGANGAN DAN PENGANGKUTAN (MPP) KOMODITAS STRATEGIS DI INDONESIA

Trade and Transport Margins is the difference between the sales value and th e purchase value of the commodity as compensation for the trader who is the distributor of the commodity. The higher Trade and Transport Margins indicates the longer and less efficient distribution pattern, so that it can harm producers and consumers. Data is taken from the 2020 Poldis survey with strategic commodities of Rice, Eggs, Sugar, and Cooking Oil. The value of the National Trade and Transport Margins in 2020 for rice and sugar has decreased but is not followed by an increasing number of provincial Trade and Transport Margins which have decreased. It is necessary to conduct an analysis to determine the characteristics of commodities in each province, hierarchical cluster analysis by comparing the application of the average, complete, single, ward's, and centroid methods to obtain the best method. Based on the results of hierarchical cluster analysis for all methods, then compared the cophenetic correlation values ​​ and the highest correlation on the average method with a correlation of 0.8318939. Then cluster profiling was carried out using the average method, it was concluded that Cluster 1 was dominated by low Trade and Transport Margins for all commodities, so that the distribution pattern of all commodities was efficient in 28 provinces in Indonesia. Cluster 2 has the characteristics of high Trade and Transport Margins of Rice and Cooking Oil as well as eggs and moderate sugar, so the distribution pattern is still not efficient for rice and cooking oil commodities in 4 provinces in Indonesia. Cluster 3 has the characteristics of high Trade and Transport Margins of eggs and sugar as well as medium of rice and cooking oil, so the distribution pattern is still not efficient for eggs and sugar in 2 provinces in Indonesia. Based on the results of the cluster analysis, it is hoped that it can be used as a reference in formulating and establishing policies as an effort to reduce the Trade and Transport Margins value of strategic commodities in provinces in clusters 2 and 3 according to the conditions of commodity characteristics so that the distribution pattern of strategic commodities becomes more efficient.

Capital flows, itinerant laborers, and time: A revision of Thompson’s thesis of time and work discipline

E. P. Thompson’s classic article “Time and Work-Discipline in Industrial Capitalism,” gives an incomplete picture of the transition to the time consciousness in industrial capitalism. This is for two reasons. First, by not understanding time logics of pre-industrial societies and viewing such logics as “irregular,” Thompson was unable to understand how wages were paid, and workers disciplined in a culture that used seasonally variable temporal hours in pre-industrial England. Second, with regard to industrialism, Thompson did not recognize the effects on labor of credit and a huge capital influx from the sugar trade on the emergence of manufacturing in England in the 18th century. By documenting the issues of changing ways of relating time to wage, seasonality, place, and finance, this paper argues that the increased year-round availability of capital combined with the alienation of workers from the seasonality of time in specific locations drove the shift from daywork to clock-measured wages during the Industrial Revolution, and that the adoption of clock time was a response to confusion over how day wages could be made uniform over different latitudes and during different times of year.