Editing Sucrose (section)

===History of sucrose refinement===
{{multiple image
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 | footer = Table sugar production in the 19th century. [[Sugar cane]] plantations (upper image) employed slave or indentured laborers. The picture shows workers harvesting cane, loading it on a boat for transport to the plant, while a European overseer watches in the lower right. The lower image shows a sugar plant with two furnace chimneys. Sugar plants and plantations were harsh, inhumane work.<ref name=britain1/>
 | image1 = Tropenmuseum Royal Tropical Institute Objectnumber 3581-33h Ingekleurde litho voorstellende de oo.jpg
 | image2 = StateLibQld 1 235370 Mill house and stables on the Macnade Sugar Plantation, Ingham, ca. 1881.jpg
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[[File:Sokeritoppa.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[sugarloaf]] was a traditional form for sugar from the 17th to 19th centuries. [[Sugar nips]] were required to break off pieces.]]
{{Main|History of sugar}}
The production of table sugar has a long history. Some scholars claim Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the [[Gupta dynasty]], around CE 350.<ref name=Adas>
Adas, Michael (2001). [https://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA311 ''Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130614041819/https://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA311 |date=2013-06-14 }}. Temple University Press. {{ISBN|1-56639-832-0}}. p. 311.</ref>

Other scholars point to the ancient manuscripts of China, dated to the 8th century BCE, where one of the earliest historical mentions of [[sugar cane]] is included along with the fact that their knowledge of sugar cane was derived from [[India]].<ref name="gr1"/> By about 500 BCE, residents of modern-day India began making sugar syrup, cooling it in large flat bowls to produce raw sugar crystals that were easier to store and transport. In the local Indian language, these crystals were called {{transliteration|hi|khanda}} ({{lang|hi|खण्ड}}), which is the source of the word ''candy''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sugarcane: Saccharum Offcinarum|publisher=USAID, Govt of United States|year=2006|page=7.1|url=https://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/environment/docs/ag&environ/Sugarcane.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131106015828/https://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/environment/docs/ag%26environ/Sugarcane.pdf|archive-date=2013-11-06}}</ref>

The army of [[Alexander the Great]] was halted on the banks of river [[Indus River|Indus]] by the refusal of his troops to go further east. They saw people in the Indian subcontinent growing sugarcane and making "granulated, salt-like sweet powder", locally called {{transliteration|mr|sākhar}} ({{lang|mr|साखर}}), ({{lang|ur|شکر}}), pronounced as {{transliteration|grc|sakcharon}} ({{lang|grc|ζακχαρον}}) in Greek (Modern Greek, {{transliteration|el|zachari}}, {{lang|el|ζάχαρη}}). On their return journey, the Greek soldiers carried back some of the "honey-bearing reeds". Sugarcane remained a limited crop for over a millennium. Sugar was a rare commodity and traders of sugar became wealthy. Venice, at the height of its financial power, was the chief sugar-distributing center of [[Europe]].<ref name=gr1>{{cite book|title=Something about sugar: its history, growth, manufacture and distribution|author=Rolph, George |year=1873|publisher=San Francisco, J. J. Newbegin |url=https://archive.org/details/somethingaboutsu00rolprich}}</ref> Moors started producing it in [[Sicily]] and [[Spain]]. Only after the [[Crusades]] did it begin to rival honey as a sweetener in Europe. The Spanish began cultivating sugarcane in the [[West Indies]] in 1506 ([[Cuba]] in 1523). The [[Portugal|Portuguese]] first cultivated sugarcane in [[Brazil]] in 1532.

Sugar remained a luxury in much of the world until the 18th century. Only the wealthy could afford it. In the 18th century, the demand for table sugar boomed in Europe and by the 19th century it had become regarded as a human necessity.<ref name=mintz/> The use of sugar grew from use in tea, to [[cake]]s, [[candy|confectionery]] and [[chocolate]]s. Suppliers marketed sugar in novel forms, such as solid cones, which required consumers to use a [[sugar nips|sugar nip]], a pliers-like tool, in order to break off pieces.

The demand for cheaper table sugar drove, in part, colonization of tropical islands and nations where labor-intensive sugarcane plantations and table sugar manufacturing could thrive. Growing sugar cane crop in hot humid climates, and producing table sugar in high temperature sugar mills was harsh, inhumane work. The demand for cheap labor for this work, in part, first drove slave trade from Africa (in particular West Africa), followed by indentured labor trade from South Asia (in particular India).<ref name=britain1>{{cite web|title=Forced Labour|year=2010|publisher=The National Archives, Government of the United Kingdom|url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/india/forced.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161204015712/https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/india/forced.htm|archive-date=2016-12-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Lai, Walton|title=Indentured labor, Caribbean sugar: Chinese and Indian migrants to the British West Indies, 1838–1918|year=1993|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-7746-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Vertovik, Steven|editor=Cohen, Robin|title=The Cambridge survey of world migration|year=1995|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgesurveyo00robi/page/57 57–68]|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-44405-7|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgesurveyo00robi/page/57}}</ref> Millions of slaves, followed by millions of indentured laborers were brought into the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Islands, East Africa, Natal, north and eastern parts of South America, and southeast Asia. The modern ethnic mix of many nations, settled in the last two centuries, has been influenced by table sugar.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Question of Labour: Indentured Immigration Into Trinidad & British Guiana, 1875–1917|author=Laurence, K |publisher=St Martin's Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0-312-12172-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=St. Lucia's Indian Arrival Day|publisher=Caribbean Repeating Islands|url=https://repeatingislands.com/2009/05/07/st-lucia's-indian-arrival-day/|date=2009-05-07|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170424085806/https://repeatingislands.com/2009/05/07/st-lucia%E2%80%99s-indian-arrival-day/|archive-date=2017-04-24}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Indian indentured labourers|publisher=The National Archives, Government of the United Kingdom|year=2010|url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/indian-indentured-labour.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111212175352/https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/indian-indentured-labour.htm|archive-date=2011-12-12}}</ref>

Beginning in the late 18th century, the production of sugar became increasingly mechanized. The [[steam engine]] first powered a sugar mill in [[Jamaica]] in 1768, and, soon after, steam replaced direct firing as the source of process heat. During the same century, Europeans began experimenting with sugar production from other crops. [[Andreas Marggraf]] identified sucrose in [[beet root]]<ref>Marggraf (1747) [https://books.google.com/books?id=lJQDAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA79 "Experiences chimiques faites dans le dessein de tirer un veritable sucre de diverses plantes, qui croissent dans nos contrées"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624083152/https://books.google.com/books?id=lJQDAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA79 |date=2016-06-24 }} [Chemical experiments made with the intention of extracting real sugar from diverse plants that grow in our lands], ''Histoire de l'académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres de Berlin'', pp. 79–90.</ref> and his student [[Franz Achard]] built a sugar beet processing factory in Silesia (Prussia). The beet-sugar industry took off during the [[Napoleonic Wars]], when France and the continent were cut off from Caribbean sugar. In 2009, about 20 percent of the world's sugar was produced from beets.<ref name=agrisugar1>{{cite web|title=Agribusiness Handbook: Sugar beet white sugar|publisher=Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations|year=2009|url=https://www.eastagri.org/publications/pub_docs/4_Sugar_web.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905234431/https://www.eastagri.org/publications/pub_docs/4_Sugar_web.pdf|archive-date=2015-09-05}}</ref>

Today, a large beet refinery producing around 1,500 tonnes of sugar a day needs a permanent workforce of about 150 for 24-hour production.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}