Thursday, April 28, 2011

SugarCane, Saccharum officinarum

Sugarcane is a native of South-East Asia, where it was used at least since  8000 BC. Crystallized sugar is known to man  for about 5 000 years (Indus Valley civilization).
Emperor Darius discovered sugar during his wars with several states in India  in 510 BC (" the reed that gives honey without the bees").  Arabs  conquered Persia  in 642 AD  and spread sugarcane  all over Middle East and North Africa. Western Europeans got sugar with the first Crusades in 11th century. Sugar reached England in 1099, and was in grand demand ever since. In 1319, a pound of sugar was worth 2 shillings, an equivalent of 24 gallons of medium quality Ale,  or an entire Somerset pig, or 48 chickens, or 4 geese, or 45-50 pounds of cheese, or  anywhere from 120 to 240 salted herrings, you get the idea.
By 1750 Britain had only 120 sugar mills that were producing only 30 000 tons  of sugar per year.
As a luxury item it was taxed heavily by the crown and in 1781  sugar  taxes brought  326 000 pounds to London, by 1815 this figure was as high as 3 million. Only  by 1874, with help of Prime Minister Gladstone, the tax was abolished and sugar became ( more or less) affordable  to everybody.
Now sugarcane is the biggest  world's crop  by weight . Over 111 countries are growing Sugarcane, and in 2009 the world production was over 1 682 577 768 tonnes, leaving an average Earthling with over 247 kg of sugarcane. This is roughly 25 kg of sugar, plus some other nutrients. Considering traces of other things sugarcane juice  has it's enough to last you almost 50 days at 2000 calories per day diet.
Biggest producer ( both by total weight and per capita) is Brazil with 689 895 024 tonnes of sugarcane in 2009.
Brazilian sugarcane crop of 2009 was the largest  crop of anything, anywhere , ever.
It was over 3.64 tonnes of sugarcane per each Brazilian. Imagine that--nearly 1 kg of sugar per day! You'd probably  get diabetes  within a month  if you tried to consume that much. Obviously, not all of  the sugarcane is turned into sugar, but still a pretty impressive number.

23 727 751 hectares were used for sugarcane production in 2009, or almost 1.51% of all arable land available in the world. Brazil uses over 15% of all it's arable land for sugarcane,  and this number is growing steadily at the cost of Amazon.
Sugarcane yields are usually very high, assuming there are plenty of water available ( sugarcane uses 150-300 liters of water for 1 kg of dry matter)
Average yield  worldwide in 2009 was almost 71 tons per hectare. Record for 2009 belongs to Peru , 131.8 tonnes per hectare. Record yield ever belongs to Peru also, almost 157 tonnes per hectare in 1972.
Lowest yields since 1961 were in 1962, 48.4 tonnes per hectare.
Biggest crop of sugarcane ever was in 2008, over 1736 million tonnes. Worst, since 1961-- 436.8 million tonnes in 1962.
Land usage for sugarcane grew 2.72 times between 1961 and 2008.
Sugarcane prices are different from 1 country to another, since nearly all  producing countries intervene  in sugar cane production  in one way or another. In India for example current prices are about 2 000 Indian rupees  per ton.
As for ethanol, you need about 17 grams of  sugar to get 1% of alcohol content , so a 1 liter of 96% pure ethanol would require  1632 grams of sugar.  So there is enough sugarcane out there to make  15.3 liters of ethanol per each human ( as of 2009). Worldwide it would be 104.3 billion liters   or 27.56 billion gallons of ethanol. Never mind that then we would have to give up on 70% of all sugar available on Earth

My usual sources are fao.org, cia.gov, usda.gov, alibaba.com and many others.Thank you for your interest!


List of all articles at Ironrye:
 http://ironrye.blogspot.com/2011/10/list-of-all-articles-at-iron-rye.html

Production by countries:       


item200720082009
Afghanistan
Sugar cane
70000
62960

M
American Samoa
Sugar cane
28
28

M
Angola
Sugar cane
360000
360000

M
Antigua and Barbuda
Sugar cane



M
M
Argentina
Sugar cane
29950000
29950000
29950000F
Australia
Sugar cane
36397000
32621113
31456858
Bahamas
Sugar cane
57500
57500
57500F
Bangladesh
Sugar cane
5769945
4983656

M
Barbados
Sugar cane
354000
311000
320000F
Belize
Sugar cane
1200050
980114
917728
Benin
Sugar cane
40375
40920

M
Bhutan
Sugar cane
13300
13300

M
Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
Sugar cane
6402528
7009195
7437696
Brazil
Sugar cane
549707328
645300182
689895024
Burkina Faso
Sugar cane
455000
455000F
M
Burundi
Sugar cane
180000
180000F
M
Cambodia
Sugar cane
286811
385238
350000*
Cameroon
Sugar cane
1450000F 1450000F 1450000F
Cape Verde
Sugar cane
28500F 28500F
M
Central African Republic
Sugar cane
95000F 95000F 95000F
Chad
Sugar cane
390000F 390000F
M
China
Sugar cane
113731917
124917502
113745502*
Colombia
Sugar cane
38500000F 38500000F 38500000F
Congo
Sugar cane
540000F 600000F
M
Costa Rica
Sugar cane
4500000F 4200000F 4100000F
Côte d'Ivoire
Sugar cane
1636330
1630000F
M
Cuba
Sugar cane
11900000
15700000
14900000
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Sugar cane
1550000F 1550000F
M
Djibouti
Sugar cane
52F 52F
M
Dominica
Sugar cane
4800F 4800F
M
Dominican Republic
Sugar cane
4823910
4823910F
M
Ecuador
Sugar cane
8360001
9341095
8473141
Egypt
Sugar cane
17014272
16469947
17000000F
El Salvador
Sugar cane
4956477
5249939
5736063
Ethiopia
Sugar cane
2200000F 2300000F 1100000F
Fiji
Sugar cane
2478000
2321000
2247000
French Guiana
Sugar cane
5500F 5500F
M
French Polynesia
Sugar cane
3000F 3000F
M
Gabon
Sugar cane
220000F 220000F 220000F
Ghana
Sugar cane
145000F 145000F
M
Grenada
Sugar cane
7200F 7200F
M
Guadeloupe
Sugar cane
732500* 732500F
M
Guatemala
Sugar cane
25436764
25436764F
M
Guinea
Sugar cane
283000F 283000F
M
Guinea-Bissau
Sugar cane
5500F 6000F
M
Guyana
Sugar cane
3099200
2766500

M
Haiti
Sugar cane
1100000
1110000

M
Honduras
Sugar cane
6080910
6141719
6203136
India
Sugar cane
355519700
348187900
285029000
Indonesia
Sugar cane
25300000* 26000000* 26500000F
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Sugar cane
5314825
3097481
3034936
Iraq
Sugar cane
0* 3720
6276
Jamaica
Sugar cane
1968000
1968000F
M
Japan
Sugar cane
1500000
1598000
1515000
Kenya
Sugar cane
5204214
5112000
5610702
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Sugar cane
323875
416730
433500
Lebanon
Sugar cane
0F 0F
M
Liberia
Sugar cane
265000F 265000F
M
Madagascar
Sugar cane
2600000F 2600000F
M
Malawi
Sugar cane
2500000F 2500000F
M
Malaysia
Sugar cane
559990
693850
700000F
Mali
Sugar cane
341845
350000F
M
Martinique
Sugar cane
215000F 215000F
M
Mauritius
Sugar cane
4235849
4533000
4669420
Mexico
Sugar cane
52089356
51106900

M
Morocco
Sugar cane
933850
912600

M
Mozambique
Sugar cane
2060667
2451170

M
Myanmar
Sugar cane
7000000F 7000000F
M
Nepal
Sugar cane
2599789
2485437
2354412
Nicaragua
Sugar cane
4480873
4304855

M
Niger
Sugar cane
240000F 187752

M
Nigeria
Sugar cane
1506000
1500000F
M
Oman
Sugar cane
952
952F
M
Pakistan
Sugar cane
54741600
63920000
50045000
Panama
Sugar cane
1724662
1774929

M
Papua New Guinea
Sugar cane
320000F 320000F
M
Paraguay
Sugar cane
4100000
5079612
4800000
Peru
Sugar cane
8228623
9395959
10100076
Philippines
Sugar cane
22235000
26601400
22932819
Portugal
Sugar cane
5100F 5100F
M
Puerto Rico
Sugar cane
0F 0F
M
Réunion
Sugar cane
1575513* 1773411

M
Rwanda
Sugar cane
97010
63000
63000F
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Sugar cane
105000F 111000F
M
Saint Lucia
Sugar cane

M
M
M
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sugar cane
20000F 20000F
M
Samoa
Sugar cane
12F 12F
M
Senegal
Sugar cane
836000F 836000F
M
Sierra Leone
Sugar cane
70000F 70000F
M
Singapore
Sugar cane

M
M
M
Somalia
Sugar cane
215000F 215000F
M
South Africa
Sugar cane
19724000
20500000F
M
Spain
Sugar cane
522
500F
M
Sri Lanka
Sugar cane
782510
799450
919530
Sudan
Sugar cane
7467000
7453400
7526700
Suriname
Sugar cane
120000F 120000F
M
Swaziland
Sugar cane
5000000F 5000000F
M
Syrian Arab Republic
Sugar cane
0F 0F
M
Thailand
Sugar cane
64365482
73501610
66816446
Trinidad and Tobago
Sugar cane
810000F 810000F
M
Uganda
Sugar cane
2350000F 2350000F
M
United Republic of Tanzania
Sugar cane
2370000F 2370000F
M
United States of America
Sugar cane
27750600
25041020
27455950
United States Virgin Islands
Sugar cane

M
M
M
Uruguay
Sugar cane
293200
334081
359000F
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
Sugar cane
9690791
9448162

M
Viet Nam
Sugar cane
17396700
16128000
15246400
Wallis and Futuna Islands
Sugar cane
20
20

M
Yemen
Sugar cane
0F 0F
M
Zambia
Sugar cane
2500000F 2500000F
M
Zimbabwe
Sugar cane
3000000F 3100000F
M
World + (Total)
Sugar cane
1617175828A 1736271147A 1682577768A

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