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Sugarcane is a delicate plant, and there was always a need for plenty of fertilizer, irrigation, and a workforce that would work long hard hours of backbreaking labor without complaint---or without choice, as in the case of slaves. Although there was never a slave trade in the Philippines, the sugar industry here has its own unique history of exploitation, excitement, and human drama.
Sugarcane is a massive, bamboo-like grass of genus "Saccharum", tribe "Andropogonaeae", and family "Poaceae". Scientists call it photosynthetically efficient, in that it creates sucrose from sunlight, air, and water better than just about any other plant on earth. The only ones that come close are sugar maple and sugar beet; not coincidentally, those are precisely the two plants that compete directly with cane in the world sugar market.
My mother's uncle acquired a few hectares of land in the southern part of Negros Occidental in the 1950's. It is a remote area that was infested by communist rebels, and nobody in the family dared to farm the land. It was only about a decade ago when one of my cousins was crazy enough to invest in sugarcane farming.
Driving to Locotan with my cousins one Saturday in April, I was surprised to see that farm-to-market roads have been developed. There was electricity, health centers, and according to relatives who live in the area, the communist rebels are either in jail or have returned to mainstream society after the 2007 Amnesty proclamation.
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Sugarcane farming is never easy, according to my cousin. In addition to dependency on unpredictable world markets, the sugar farmer is subject to the vagaries of Mother Nature. When it rains too much, trucks can't get out in the fields to get the cane. To a naive observer like me, a field of blossoming snow-white sugarcane flowers is a sight to behold---the same scene brings a chill to the sugar farmer's spine. Because those entrancing blossoms mean that the sugar content of the cane is being rapidly depleted, and along with it market value at the mill.
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My cousins and I had the crazy idea to walk in the fields at 2 pm when the sun was unforgiving. I needed the exercise but not heat stroke! But the view...yes, the view of these rolling hills has a cooling effect even at a 33-degree C temperature.
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Taken in Locotan, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental
My contribution to My World-Tuesday
