How Sweet It Was! With the Assistance of Kathleen Van Vlack 1 Whither Sugar? BBC Caribbean 26 February, 2007 Sugar: what does the future hold? The <a href="/keyword/sugar-cane/" >sugar cane</a> industry has a long history in the Caribbean. Ever since the European Union announced that it was cutting its import price for sugar by a third, African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, have been forced to consider the future of their sugar industry. St Kitts and Nevis has dropped <a href="/keyword/sugar-cane/" >sugar cane</a> cultivation entirely. In Trinidad and Tobago, harvesting - which is now underway - will be the last time that the government gets directly involved in the industry. Barbados is scaling back its sugar production and looking at specialised markets, while in Jamaica the government is looking for private sector investors for its sugar sector. Meanwhile, in Guyana a third of agricultural output and 20% of GDP still depends on sugar, despite the European Union's announcement to cut back what it pays for the crop. The government there is holding on to the industry that's indelibly linked to the region's history spanning well over three hundred years. EU support The European Union has promised $200 million to Caribbean countries as a cushion in the aftermath of recent price cuts. It has approved the first two sugar projects for Barbados and St. Kitts and Nevis. Barbados is to get about $2.5 million and St. Kitts and Nevis' $3.5 million. Part of the money is to help former sugar workers adjust to the change. It was the Dutch, who, according to the historians, started what has been called the sugar revolution, which gave birth to today's Caribbean society. Sugar sold in Europe: a vital part of the <a href="/keyword/sugar-cane/" >sugar cane</a> market where prices have dropped. According to some historical accounts the first commercial production of sugar in the Caribbean started in Barbados in 1637 when a Dutch planter brought the <a href="/keyword/sugar-cane/" >sugar cane</a> plants from Brazil. From its ignominious beginnings and links to the slave trade, sugar has underpinned the economy of the Caribbean. So where are we now? 2 Sugar Dead? In Jamaica: In 2005 then Prime Minister PJ Patterson announced a major overhaul of that country's sugar sector - including the closure of some sugar factories. His pronouncement was greeted with mixed reactions. Some felt the social fall-out would be catastrophic, others called on the government to get out of sugar completely. However, key private sector interests along with others who supported the Government's plan insisted that the Government should desist from spending more money on the struggling sugar industry. There were even those who argued that the administration should get out of sugar as it was a losing venture. But this claim was rejected by the Government which went all out to emphasize that closing the industry would be devastating, particularly for the thousands of <a href="/keyword/unskilled-workers/" >unskilled workers</a> whose families depend on the industry. Privitisation was one of the options was being considered. The sugar industry is vital to many <a href="/keyword/unskilled-workers/" >unskilled workers</a> in the Caribbean. But nearly two years after Mr. Patterson's announcement, very little has changed. The Government through the Sugar Company of Jamaica still controls five of the seven sugar factories. Allan Rickards, the Chairman of the All Island Jamaica Cane Farmers Association says he is not excited by the announcement that bidders for privatisation have been shortlisted. &quot;I'm afraid that underwhelms me,&quot; he said. He maintains that things take much too long to happen within the struggling industry. In Guyana: In Guyana, where the sugar industry accounts for 20 per cent of the total value of the country's economic output - or gross domestic product - the government is holding on to the sector. Today however swingeing price cuts and the loss of its guaranteed access to the lucrative EU markets has left the industry reeling. However while admitting that the price cuts were severe Guyana's Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud told BBC Caribbean report major plans are being pursued not only to keep the industry alive but to ensure that it prospers. However opposition spokesman on agriculture Tony Vieira says the high production costs at some sugar factories around the country, will keep the industry uncompetitive. 3 The Island of Antigua 4 Caribbean Fishermen Farmers 5 Head Market Woman and Rich Stoffle Antigua When Sugar Died I was in Antigua just after sugar died 1985. The government simply stopped sugar supports and the factories closed down. The plantation lands were &quot;taken&quot; (not clear about the process) by the government from the defunct corporations. People in the former slave communities were permitted to restructure their village layouts. They went from Line Villages to Circular Villages with family compounds. 6 Willikies Nonsuch Bay 7 Line to Circular Villages Line Circular 8 Sophisticated Mathematics Behind African Village Designs Fractal patterns use repetition on large, small scale Bryn Nelson, Newsday Wednesday, February 23, 2000 In 1988, Ron Eglash was studying aerial photographs of a traditional Tanzanian village when a strangely familiar pattern caught his eye. The thatched-roof huts were organized in a geometric pattern of circular clusters within circular clusters, an arrangement Eglash recognized from his former days as a Silicon Valley computer engineer. Stunned, Eglash digitized the images and fed the information into a computer. The computer's calculations agreed with his intuition: He was seeing fractals. Since then, Eglash has documented the use of fractal geometry -- the geometry of similar shapes repeated on ever-shrinking scales -- in everything from hairstyles and architecture to artwork and religious practices in African culture. The complicated designs and surprisingly complex mathematical processes involved in their creation may force researchers and historians to rethink their assumptions about traditional African mathematics. The discovery may also provide a new tool for teaching African Americans about their mathematical heritage. 9 From Circles to Education Joanna Masingila, president of the North American chapter of the International Study Group on Ethnomathematics, said Eglash's research has shed light on a type of mathematical thinking and creativity that has often been ignored by Western concepts of mathematics. ``It's challenging stereotypes on what people think of as advanced...