Cuban Sugar / Azúcar Cubana

To what extent did American-backed Cuban corporations usher in efficiency through investments made to modernize the island’s sugar industry compared to taking advantage of surplus land-value? As a consequence, did a new modern sugar industry usher in development?

Growing up, I have long heard stories of marble mansions in Havana built on a foundation of sugar empires—rose-tinted memories of a Cuba that has faded into history. For my grandparents, in this pre-revolutionary moment Cuba was nothing short of a “heaven on earth”, one that was later lost to the perils of communism. The sugar industry played a central role in the mythology that they built around pre-revolutionary Cuba, an economic success story with wealth and cities that rivaled those of Europe. As I have gotten older and studied Latin American history, my view of Cuban sugar has changed tremendously: beyond the glamour at the surface there are ugly truths. Those marble mansions now seemed rest on foundations of slavery, cronyism, labor exploitation, political oppression, and, finally, environmental exploitation. Although I will focus on the relationship between ecological elements and the sugar industry, each of these consequences are interrelated and doubtless played a role in the ensuing political unrest in Cuba. I have witnessed the trauma that followed Cuba’s decent into authoritarianism firsthand in all my loved ones that were forced to leave an island they loved so dearly, in search of a better future.

 After a turbulent end to the 19th century, in the early part of the 20th century Cuba’s sugar industry got off to a booming start: production increased from 300,000 tons in 1900 to 5,156,000 tons in 1920(Thomas 1577). These increases in production were spurred by massive investments in mechanized infrastructure financed by American capitalists following the Spanish-American war. Sugar’s economic importance to Cuba cannot be understated—by 1920 Cuba was producing 22.4% of the global sugar supply and sugar prices had an outsized effect on the health of the overall economy (Thomas 558). The near-term economic advancement brought by sugar is undeniable, however, the root cause of this increase in production is left up to question. Moreover, the nature of this increase of this production and whether it amounts to development is dependent on one’s definition of development itself. Developmentalism’s origin as western neoliberal creation led to definitions overly focused on economic growth, avoiding the meaningful negative social and ecological impact of developmentalism. Thus, more helpful definitions of development must abandon economic growth as universal standard for improvement; instead, they focus on the unique impacts of policies on a diverse array of stakeholders and the long-term sustainability of each policy. In this line of thought, Shiva criticizes development’s focus on the economic factors stating the “threat of ecological destruction and [the] threat to human survival… have, however, remained the ‘hidden negative externalities’ of the development process” (Shiva 9). Thus, development cannot be defined universally as increasing economic output or per capita incomes because there are other consequences that have meaningful impacts on the public’s quality of life. Despite its convenience, the success of a developmental project cannot be based on a universal criterion or specific economic metrics. Instead, it requires a localized understanding of the unique economic, social, and ecological consequences of actions on a specific region or group. If development is to be a useful concept, it must rely on a nuanced understanding of the impacts of policies on a diverse array of stakeholders that go beyond economic growth.

With this definition of development in mind, I will argue that while the investments made by American-backed Cuba sugar corporations to build a central-based system of production were necessary to keep Cuban sugar competitive on a global stage, the new system was dependent on exploitative environmental policies. Thus, despite viewing themselves as agents of progress, Cuban elites made a Faustian bargain that exchanged environmental well-being for economic advancement. This dynamic reveals the Cuba’s developmental dilemma: while economic advancement was a central goal, achieving it through increased sugar production was unsustainable.

In order to stay economically viable and compete with lower-cost beet sugar from around the world, Cuba’s sugar industry needed to invest in technological improvements that enabled economies of scale. Under the existing ingenio system of production, Cuba’s sugar industry was highly fragmented, meaning no large player could justify large investments in mechanized processing facilities or centrales. In American Sugar Kingdom, Ayala explains that “Planters in Cuba and Puerto Rico were searching for ways to continue sugar production at productivity rates that would allow them to compete in the world market. They were aware of the great advances of the European beet industry … advanced milling capacities… system of division of labor in the beet sugar industry” resulting in the development of the central-based system of sugar production in Cuba (Ayala 191). Under this system, investors could justify the massive fixed investments in large centrales because they could reach economies of scale by processing sugar from local mid-sized cane farmers or colonos. The central-based system used technology and division of labor to develop a new logic of production that exercised economies of scale and made the Cuban sugar industry viable. Thus, without the American-back Cuban sugar enterprises all the economic advancement that came with the boom of the sugar industry would not have been possible.

Although the new mode of sugar production brought meaningful economic advancements, the rise of large-scale mechanized processing facilities completely transformed the Cuban landscape as shown through the diagram of central Manatí. Central Manatí was built in 1914 to be the standard of mechanized sugar processing in Cuba, resulting in the transformation of the landscape. Initial reports described the location that ultimately became the central Mantí as “an isolated, lowland region” with vegetation “ranging from open, treeless grasslands to thick, jungle-like forest” (Smith 40). Santiago argues in The Huasteca Rain Forest that the capitalist seaking oil extraction brought with them industrialization, ““They initiated the process of industrialization in the Huasteca… Roads, telegraph lines, a single-gauge railroad, ship terminals,… miles of pipeline, small refineries and more than a dozen large ones…All that modernity meant deforestation on a scale without precedent” (Santiago 45). Similarly, in Cuba large mechanized sugar centrales amounted to the equivalent of a bustling industrial town. As shown in the diagram, central Manatí was filled with all of the novelties of a town including a hospital, hotel & resort, police station, bakery, movie theater, and a school. Beyond the construction of a city to house 3,000 workers, the centrales necessitated large investments in rail to bring sugarcane into the facility and ship the processed sugar to nearby ports as demonstrated through the web of rails that arrive at central Manatí (Santiago 41). Similar to the oilmen in Huasteca, foreign capital attracted by the prospect of resource extraction enabled the Cuban corporations to independently mechanize the countryside and lay the infrastructure for agro-industry that mechanized the process of land exploitation. The level of ecological change was shocking—virtually overnight Cuban sugar interests industrialized a virtually uninhabited countryside that barely had roads, much less a small town with a rail system. The expansion of infrastructure into the uninhabited zones eastern Cuba was a logical progression of economic advancement: new land had to be found and infrastructure built to increase production. Thus, inherent to these goals of economic expansion was the destruction of the existing ecology in lands yet to be inhabited by humans.

      The transformation of the Cuban countryside did not end with the establishment of the central; instead, these facilities were dependent on aggregating supply from surrounding lands to create economies of scale. The result of this process was continued ecological expansion beyond the lands of the central by independent producers who had an opportunity to sell sugarcane to the central. Funes Monzote noted that the expansion of sugarcane plantations amounted to “a super destruction favorable only to the sugar latifundio and the greed of those who seek to buy land temporarily fertilized with the ashes of centuries-old forests” (Funes Monzote 227). Thus, the expansion of sugar lands came at a steep price—cashing in centuries of work done by nature in exchange for the short-term profitability of the sugar market. The owners of the central Manatí were hyper focused on land as shown through the map titled

Plano de los Terrenos Propiedad de la Manatí Sugar Company. The company details the lands they own, those which they lease from others, and those with whom they have a relationship in addition to detailing the owners of nearby land. Furthermore, the map demonstrates the fan-like rail network that the Manatí Sugar built surrounding its mill. This is reminiscent of the Cronon’s logic of the railroads that brought goods to Chicago from the west which is depicted as a corncob to the right. Cornon argues that the “The railways which radiate from Lake Michigan and run like lattice-work throughout the West, gather up business and centering at Chicago pour it by train-loads on to the through lines to the East” (Cronon 90). Effectively, the railroads that radiated from the central mirror the relationship that Cronon describes. Manatí's network of rails concentrated supply from the surrounding area in one facility to achieve maximum economies of scale in processing the sugar which was later shipped out to the global commodity markets from the nearby port listed on the map. Centrales organized a system through which the centuries of work done by nature in the adjacent lands could be exploited and the surplus nature value could be concentrated in one facility that operated with maximum efficiency. As shown through the relationship of the central Manatí with the surrounding lands, fixed investments in large mechanized sugar production plants could only be made economically viable by extracting massive amounts of surplus nature value from the surrounding area. Thus, while the large facilities brought increased efficiency through technological investments and economies of scale, achieving these economies of scale was dependent on unsustainable practices that exploited centuries of nature’s work for short-term productivity advantages.

As demonstrated by the organization of the central Manatí, the sugar industry was transformed into an industrial process where raw sugarcane was concentrated and produced at scale as a monoculture, resulting in disease. In “Green Havoc” Marquardt argues that, “capitalist agriculture” in Panamanian banana plantations resulted in a “radical simplification" of ecosystems” (Marquardt 50). Furthermore, Marquardt argues that “the "radical simplification" of agricultural ecologies in the cultivation of other commodity crops…have also led to protracted struggles with pests and diseases” (Marquardt 77). Capitalist modes of agricultural production are dependent on achieving economies of scale, prerequisite monoculture in order to achieve a density of product. As shown in Plano de los Terrenos Propiedad de la Manatí Sugar Company there was an extremely high concentration of sugar production surrounding the mills, destroying the ecological diversity of thousands of hectares and replacing it with a monoculture. While this mode of production may maximize economic output in the short-term by easing transport to the central, the increased likelihood of disease may come with devastating effects. In Cuba, mosaic disease proved to have a significant impact on sugarcane yields, with studies showing that the “the yield of healthy cane was two and a half times greater than that of infected cane” (McCook 100). Sugarcane cultivation was organized to maximize production, however, the method of production defied the ecological constraints, leading to tremendous consequences that ultimately reduced efficiency. While ecological constraints may be ignored in the short run to drive productivity, these gains are only temporary improvements that come with high long-term cost. Ultimately, the ecological reality will determine the sustainability and therefore the viability of different modes of production.  In the The ‘Green Revolution’ as history, Alcántra identified this disingenuousness of “productivity” gains by the elites stating, “Large landowners have obtained higher yields and profits than other farm sectors because they have controlled incalculably greater resources, not because they have been more efficient” (Alcántra 38). This dynamic also hold true in Cuban sugar. The economic advancement that has came from the new central-based system of production was not a product of more efficient management; instead, large owners of capital were enacting unsustainable practices in order to ensure their outsized profitability—effectively they were borrowing from the future. Meaning, while technological investments may enable higher capacity for sugar processing, this increased capacity is only useful if the centrales can exploit the environment by coopting uninhabited lands and extracting the surplus nature value while destroying the ecological diversity and reducing yields. This method of production simply was not sustainable over the long-term.

While economic advancement can bring meaningful improvements to lives of many, severe ecological consequences can have devastating effects that more than cancel-out the economic benefits. For Cuba, the success of investments in the sugar industry were dependent on the exploitation of the environment in a way that was simply not sustainable. While the virgin lands on the eastern half of Cuba seemed infinite, the stark reality is that these new lands would soon run out and slowly the fertility of existing lands would decrease. While the modernization of the sugar industry through technological investments was necessary to make it economically viable, those same investments made the sugar industry ecologically nonviable. Forgoing the immediate gratification of economic advancement in exchange for following more uncertain paths may be a difficult choice but, to opt for unsustainable forms of economic advancement is to guarantee developmental failure. Thus, investing into the sugar industry exchanged ecological sustainability for economic advancement. Although this trade may seem tempting in the short run, like any deal made with the devil, it is only good until you have to pay the price.

Alcántara, Cynthia Hewitt De. "The ‘Green Revolution’ as History: The Mexican Experience*." Development and Change5, no. 2 (1974): 25-44. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.1974.tb00655.x.

Ayala, César J. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898-1934. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Cronon, William. Natures Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

Marquardt, Steve. ""Green Havoc": Panama Disease, Environmental Change, and Labor Process in the Central American Banana Industry." The American Historical Review106, no. 1 (2001): 49. doi:10.2307/2652224.

McCook, Stuart George. States of Nature Science, Agriculture, and Environment in the Spanish Caribbean, 1760-1940. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002.

Manati Sugar Company. "Mill and Batey. Manati Sugar Compan." Map.

Monzote, Reinaldo Funes. From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba: An Environmental History since 1492. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.

Manati Sugar Company. "Plano De Los Terrenos Propiedad De La Manati Sugar Company." Map.

Sachs, Wolfgang, Vandana Shiva, and Gustavo Esteva. The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power. London: Zed, 2019.

Santiago, Myrna. "The Huasteca Rain Forest: An Environmental History." Latin American Research Review46, no. S (2011): 32-54. doi:10.1353/lar.2011.0040.

Smith, Mark. "The Political Economy of Sugar Production and the Environment of Eastern Cuba, 1898–1923." Environmental History Review19, no. 4 (1995): 31-48. doi:10.2307/3984691.