The sugar industry subsumes the production, processing and marketing of sugars (mostly sucrose and fructose). In 2017, worldwide production of table sugar amounted to 185 million tonnes.
Sugar is used for soft drinks, sweetened beverages, convenience foods, fast food, candy, confectionery, baked products, and other sweetened foods. Sugarcane is used in the distillation of rum. Sugarcane produces several valuable byproducts that play a significant role in supporting economic growth.
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, perennial grass (in the genus Saccharum, tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. Sugarcanes belong to the grass family, Poaceae, an economically important flowering plant family that includes maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum, and many forage crops. It is native to New Guinea.
Sugarcane was an ancient crop of the Austronesian and Papuan people. The best evidence available today points to the New Guinea area as the site of the original domestication of Saccharum officinarum. It was introduced to Polynesia, Island Melanesia, and Madagascar in prehistoric times via Austronesian sailors. It was also introduced by Austronesian sailors to India and then to Southern China by 500 BC, via trade. The Persians and Greeks encountered the famous "reeds that produce honey without bees" in India between the sixth and fourth centuries BC. They adopted and then spread sugarcane agriculture. By the eighth century, sugar was considered a luxurious and expensive spice from India, and merchant trading spread its use across the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the 18th century, sugarcane plantations began in the Caribbean, South American, Indian Ocean, and Pacific island nations. The need for sugar crop laborers became a major driver of large migrations, some people voluntarily accepting indentured servitude and others forcibly imported as slaves.
Saccharum officinarum is a large, strong-growing species of grass in the sugarcane genus. Its stout stalks are rich in sucrose, a disaccharide sugar which accumulates in the stalk internodes. It originated in New Guinea, and is now cultivated in tropical and subtropical countries worldwide for the production of sugar, ethanol and other products. It is one of the most productive and most intensively cultivated kinds of sugarcane.
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (Beta vulgaris). Together with other beet cultivars, such as beetroot and chard, it belongs to the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris but is classified as var. saccharifera. Its closest wild relative is the sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima).
Sugar beets are grown in climates that are too cold for sugarcane. In 2020, Russia, the United States, Germany, France and Turkey were the world's five largest sugar beet producers. In 2010–2011, Europe, and North America except Arctic territories failed to supply the overall domestic demand for sugar and were all net importers of sugar. The US harvested 406,547 hectares (1,004,600 acres) of sugar beets in 2008. In 2009, sugar beets accounted for 20% of the world's sugar production and nearly 30% by 2013. Sugarcane accounts for most of the rest of sugar produced globally. In February 2015, a USDA factsheet reported that sugar beets generally account for about 55 percent of sugar produced in the United States, and sugar cane for about 45 percent.