Sucre Ethique - Sugarcane and Indigenous People

Simone Rettberg, University of Bayreuth, Germany ; Tom Odero Ombogo, Kenyatta University, Nairobi Ethiopia ; Francesco Sincish, University of Genoa, Italy ; Olivier Geneviève and Caroline Altare, NGO Ethical Sugar, France.

The arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil quickly gave rise to the import of African slaves for the cultivation ofsugar cane as an added value- export produce. sugar cane is certainly one of the farm product which contributed to shaping our current world between forced interbreeding and acculturation of the people.

. For example the Tainos people of Haiti were "cannibalized" by sugar cane and replaced by the descendants of the slaves to feed in sugar a Europe starting its industrial revolution. Benjamin Disraeli the English Prime Minister under the reign of the Empress Victoria said in 1857 about sugar "It is strange that a product which delights the children and comforts the old people has been subject to so many debates for humanity ".

Today more than ever sugar cane is synonymous of a certain progress and a certain globalization. If sugar cane is a source of foodstuff it can also feed our engines and produce some electricity in rural areas. This energy function is nowadays a subject of debate in a period when the access the ground for agricultural production is more and more problematic.

At the beginning of the 21st century and in the opening of markets in the international capital represented by the transnational companies’ lands indeed became a new stake. To manage to feed more than 9 billion human beings is one of the key questions of the current world. Now lands are inhabited by human beings having values and their own cultures and which are often very far from the stock-exchange concerns or the interests in term of returns as well on agronomists as on shareholders.

This study brings certain lighting on problems carried on by the of the sugar cane production today. It brings to light a certain shape of shock of civilizations by means of examples transposed as accurately as possible of the realities of the people who "undergo" this shock. Between modernity and tradition, sugar companies will have to make compromises not to transform the regions where they are established in biodiversity and human deserts and to engender the destruction of the local populations.

Nowadays the sector of sugar cane’s production is setting up impacts assessment norms, which include a part on indigenous people. We hope that these specifications will not be some greenwashing but will take a bold step forward for the protection of native people in the world.

IMG/pdf/Sugarcane_and_indigenous_people.pdf - pdf 3.5 Mo - français