Sugar trade that made modern world longs for sweet hereafter
The EU’s decision to remove limits on beet-sugar output means an unsavoury drop in demand for cane growers from Jamaica to Fiji and Swaziland
London — Europeans’ taste for sugar transformed the world. West Indies plantations built from the 17th century to feed demand drove a nexus of commerce, capital and manufacture that fomented the industrial revolution and modern financial markets. More than three hundred years later, Europe is set to deliver a crippling blow to a trade that once made up almost a fifth of its entire imports, and has sustained developing-country sugar cane farmers since. The EU’s decision to remove limits on its own beet-sugar output from October means less demand for cane growers from Jamaica in the Caribbean, to the Pacific island of Fiji, and Swaziland in Southern Africa. "Within a decade or so, I can see the EU market for raw sugar from the Caribbean being all but a matter of history," said David Jessop, an adviser to companies and governments on trade and investment in the region. "The challenge from the Caribbean perspective is what they can do, if anything, to ensure the future of their industry...
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