© polity.co.uk
The following is written by Ben Richardson, based on his new book
Sugar (Polity Books, 2015):
Class, gender, nationality and race structure sugar's unequal production, exchange and consumption across the world. This can be seen most vividly in the corporeal effects of sugar: the
new type of chronic kidney disease striking down sugarcane field workers in Central America, the high rate of
prostitution and HIV in sugar towns in Zambia, and the disproportionate level of
tooth decay among poor and Hispanic children in Colorado, US. The circulation of sugar is also embodied in the landscape with unequal effects on wildlife. Fertilizer run-off from sugar farming has contributed to the
degradation of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland and the
destruction of fisheries in the Indus delta (by contrast, the sugarcane plantations have provided welcoming habitats for rats and snakes). Yet these environmental changes are also social. In the case of water pollution, those worst affected have tended to be indigenous people and artisanal fisherfolk traditionally dependent on communal resources for drinking and fishing.
So to really get at the global politics of sugar, the essential question for me was "why does it harm some more than others?"
Comment: Big Pharma and organized crime — They are more similar than you may think