Abstract
The growth of the sugar industry covering the period since the Industrial Revolution is described on a worldwide basis. Illustrations link the interplay between trade and technology. Factory size and efficiency have increased remarkably between 1830, when automatic temperature control was first introduced, and 1962 when computer control of factory processes began. However, difference in labour productivity still obtain between the modern factories of Queensland and Europe on the one hand, and the developing world on the other. Whilst during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th Centuries, the technological and economic advantage were on the side of the beet industry, the recent rise in energy prices, coupled with the virtual demise of refining, may swing the pendulum back towards cane in the developing world. The beet industry is also vulnerable to the recent growth of sugar made in factories from maize. After 150 years of sustained growth, there is now a recent, but definite, decline in consumption per head of the population in the developed world.
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