Cycling around the Inle lake, a picturesque area in North East of Burma, gives a pleasant feeling of freshness after days spent in the scorching sun of the dry zone, in the middle of the country. The old mercury thermometer in the room still oscillates around 40 C but the shadow of the lush vegetation and the breeze from the lake help.
Abundance of water and a subtropical climate fill the green landscape with a continuous patchwork of rice fields and sugar cane plantations.
I...
more »Cycling around the Inle lake, a picturesque area in North East of Burma, gives a pleasant feeling of freshness after days spent in the scorching sun of the dry zone, in the middle of the country. The old mercury thermometer in the room still oscillates around 40 C but the shadow of the lush vegetation and the breeze from the lake help.
Abundance of water and a subtropical climate fill the green landscape with a continuous patchwork of rice fields and sugar cane plantations.
I spent few days tracking down the fate of a sugar cane, from the plantation to the sweet white crystals we love in our cakes. To be fair, to follow the fate of a plant wouldn’t be as interesting if it was not for the lives of the people involved with it. As most of agricultural jobs in underdeveloped Burma, sugarcane economy is built on a small, family-driven realities that are controlled by few, richer entrepreneurs.
On one of my sweaty bike rides, I noticed a golden roofed stupa. The ubiquitous Buddhist temple overlooks a bucolic scene where men are ploughing a field helped by oxen. A technique employed in Europe so long ago that is more common in oil paintings than photographs. An entire family is involved to fill the freshly created furrows with stem cuts of single canes. Their kids play with the leftover. A man strews a granulated fertilizer walking up and down the field.
In few weeks the stems will grow into an impenetrable plantation ready for the harvest. Exactly what happens down the road. A group of women of all ages, armed with their machetes, cut their way in the dense jungle carefully avoiding snakes and methodically assembling the crop in fascines. They keep stems apart for another round of planting.
I ask for the destination of the crop to discover that its brutal fate provides the livelihood of another family the other side of the road. Sugarcanes are pressed into a juice. The residual fibres, dried in the sun, will provide fuel. An example of a self-sufficient energetic production cycle. Under a poorly built shed a battery of black, sticky pots heat up a liquid bubbling vigorously. Several hours later the sugar content of the juice thickens from about 10-15% down to 60%. The syrup is then cooled down and transferred into old drums waiting on top of a truck.
Few miles away a chimney smokes. Supervised by their boss a dozen workers run a small factory. High pressure, temperature and vacuum convert the syrup in sugar crystals. Two men sample small portions of the reducing liquid on a slide, through a bulb. When ready the solution will be seeded with crystals and to left to crystallize.
The unrefined sugar is conserved in gunnysacks weighting 50kgs. Workers load them on another truck to be sold. I try and can’t manage to carry a single one. Each sack will earn the boss about 30$ each. The average pay of a farmer in Burma is about a dollar a day, half the cost of a sweet cup of coffee.
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