To cure your sugar addiction, spend some time watching sugar cane being cut by hand.
This week I’ve been working with a farming association who grows 100 hectares (nearly 250 acres) of sugar cane under contract with a sugar processing company located roughly 40 kilometers from them along the national highway, the EN6, which runs from the port of Beira to Zimbabwe.
I’m training association members how to market and sell their vegetable production, an enterprise they are developing to diversify their business. Each day at 2 PM I’ve conducted a marketing training seminar immediately adjacent to the sugar cane fields. Each day I’m stunned by the progress made by forty workers wielding machetes.
It’s brutal smokey, dirty, lung-choking physical labor. The day prior to cutting the fields are burned. I have simply developed a cough from sitting a couple of hours every day next to the fields.
The workers cut by hand beginning at 6 am. The winter the sun forces them to quit before 5:00 pm, otherwise they would keep working.
A typical worker earns 250 mt ($4) each day. These are the people who feed the world’s sugar habit, allowing us a cheap burst of pleasure and comfort.
Remember them the next time you drink a soda or consume your favorite sweet treat. Express gratitude and respect.
Farmers, Food, and Vegetables 