Did you know that Guyana is one of the largest sugar producers in the Caribbean region? Together with rice, another hugely important Guyanese crop, sugarcane has been a critical part of Guyana’s agriculture industry—and the country’s economic development overall—for many years. As the sugarcane sector has grown, it has received strong backing from financial institutions such as GBTI, which is proud to support the sector through its agricultural loans geared toward sugarcane farming and other sugar production activities.

If you’re looking for something to satisfy your sweet tooth, read on for some fascinating facts about sugarcane and Guyana’s sugar industry.

All fruits and vegetables contain sugar.

The carbohydrate sucrose, more commonly known as sugar, occurs naturally in every type of fruit and vegetable. This is because all plants transform the sun’s energy into food through photosynthesis; the food resulting from this process takes the form of sucrose, which serves as the plant’s energy store. However, different plants produce sucrose in very different quantities, which is why only sugarcane and sugar beets, the two plants which produce the largest amounts of sucrose, are used for the production of commercial sugar.

Guyana has excellent conditions for sugarcane cultivation.

In order to thrive, sugarcane needs high temperatures and at least 59 inches of annual rainfall. Guyana, with its consistent tropical climate and roughly 79 inches of annual rainfall, satisfies these conditions very well.

Most Guyanese sugarcane is grown in several areas near the coast, where there is deep and fertile soil. Because the country typically has two rainy seasons and two drier periods each year, there are usually two sugarcane harvests. Growing can happen during the wetter periods and harvesting during the drier. In addition, the fact that fields are often flooded with rain before sugarcane is planted means that the soil contains more nutrients and minerals. Moreover, the frequent rain reduces the need for pesticides and herbicides, as pests are deterred by the wet conditions.

Canals play an important role in sugarcane cultivation.

Because of the wet conditions involved in growing sugarcane, it’s perhaps not surprising that canals are an important feature of sugarcane farming. In the average sugarcane field, as much as one-eighth of the surface is taken up by canals. Not only are canals useful for irrigation, but they also play a role when it comes to transporting the harvested crop; canes are loaded into punts, or small, flat-bottomed boats, which can easily travel between the fields and the processing factories.

The history of Guyana’s sugar industry goes back centuries.

Guyana’s sugar industry, which is strongly tied to early colonization, is over 350 years old. The industry was first founded in 1658 by the Dutch West Indian Company, which established four sugarcane plantations along the Pomeroon River. By 1759, there were 200 plantations on the East Bank of Essequibo, as well as 120 along the Demerara River. In the mid-1800s, the sugar-producing Dutch colonies were ceded to the British, who expanded the sugar industry enormously—by the early 1900s, Guyana was home to nearly 400 sugar plantations.

Sugarcane cultivation involves a great deal of manual work.

Even in this age of mechanization, much of the labor involved in sugarcane cultivation and harvesting is still done manually. For example, sugarcane is usually planted by hand, often in high beds to encourage drainage. The plants are also harvested manually using special tools, and it is common practice to leave the roots in the ground to produce new plants (known as “ratooning,” this practice can be repeated up to four times).

Sugar is produced from sugarcane juice.

The majority of a sugarcane stalk (up to 75 percent) is made of water, while its sugar content is usually around 16 percent. Separating this sugar from the water and the rest of the plant material involves a multi-step refining process. First, the cane is ground to extract the juice. This juice is boiled to produce a syrup that thickens and crystallizes. Then, the crystals are spun in a centrifuge to produce raw sugar.

Sometimes, raw sugar is marketed and sold as is; more often, however, it is shipped to a refinery where it is washed and filtered (a process that removes any impurities as well as the sugar’s natural color), and then crystallized, dried, and packaged.

Other products can be made from sugarcane.

While commercial sugar is the ultimate goal of sugarcane cultivation, many of the byproducts of the refining process have their own uses. The three main byproducts of sugarcane refining are sugarcane bagasse, the fibrous residue of the cane plant, often used as a component of organic fertilizer; press mud, the residue from the filtration of sugarcane juice, which can also be used as a fertilizer; and molasses, which may be used as-is for cooking and baking, or sent for further refining and processing to produce ethanol, a simple alcohol that is increasingly used as a biofuel additive for gasoline.