Selfsufficientish.com

Hello there ,

allready mentioned this , http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 35&t=19460 , a while ago.
Europe heavily subsidises farmers to harvest sugar beet's , we taxpayer finance the circus , Africa could produce sugar
but import taxes and fee's block this option , so the poor sods in central america can do the job .
as long as we consume so much sugar we'll be responsible for exploiting some crowd of modern slaves. The government also
takes alot of taxes on sugar , this closes the circle.

regards ,

Paul

Sugar beets were actually Europe's source of sugar before the sugar cane. I wonder if Europe is trying to return to that? And will Potatoes and corn over there soon get replaced by carrots and wheat again?

When I first moved to Ireland 18 years ago we (Ireland) were self sufficient in sugar as it all came from home grown sugar beet. Then about 6 years ago the refineries shut down as they said it was no longer profitable, leaving hundreds of farmers in the lurch who had been growing beet for all their lives.
Now we have to import ALL our sugar, probably from cane, at a time when we can't afford to even run the country without handouts when we could be at least be employing our own people to grow, refine and package our unprofitable sugar.

I don't buy very much sugar, but I do have a strict rule - it's either produced in the UK, or it's fair trade. If I have to chose between organic and fair trade, fair trade wins.

Interestingly, the UK's (and indeed the world's) largest sugar beet factory uses the waste heat and CO2 from the process for growing tomatoes. It's apparently the UK's largest single glasshouse, covering 18 hectares.

I see sugar cane all the time here but don't know how it's grown.

I do know that the raw sugar cane taste a bit strange. Almost like a fruity version of sugar. I don't like to eat the cane personally (a lot of people here do), but I do like to stir a cup of green tea with a bit of peeled and chopped cane (make a lollystick sized piece). Sweetens the tea nicely.

Beet sugar also makes crap alcohol. Cane sugar is infinitely better.