Sugar

The sugar industry flourished greatly here in the 15th and 17th centuries, despite the harassment and very heavy taxes to which it was subject. Madeiran sugar was then known in the principal European markets. Captain Simão Gonçalves da Câmara, well known for his generosity, once sent Pope Leo X several valuable gifts, the most notable of which were the Sacred College, made of that product, and the cardinals at life size, all fashioned from alfenim (white sugar paste for modelling figures).

In early times the canes were pressed in alçapremas (hand-operated lever press) – hand presses – or in very rudimentary sugar mills (engenhos). The rollers of these mills were sometimes made from thick trunks of til (Ocotea foetens, Madeiran laurel), suitably prepared.

In 1496 there was sugar of one boiling and sugar of two boilings, the latter priced at 600 réis and the former at 350 réis per arroba (weight of about 15 kg). Before that, the price of each arroba of sugar, probably of the second quality, was 339 réis.

The owner of a sugar mill gave the Infante, Lord of the Island, a third of the sugar produced; the owner of an alçaprema gave only an arroba and a half of that product each month.

Shortly after 1452 there was only one water-powered sugar mill in Funchal, whereas the number of alçapremas was considerable, because the tax levied on them was lighter.

The original charter (foral), granted perhaps by Afonso V, besides requiring the third from the sugar mills, obliged growers to give half of any cane that was not made into sugar.

Over time the area given over to sugar cultivation grew, thanks to the building of levadas (irrigation channel) to water the land, while the mills’ contribution fell to a quarter and then to a fifth of the sugar. As a result the number of these establishments increased, and together with the alçapremas they were producing, around 1498, more than 120,000 arrobas, and by the middle of the 16th century more than 300,000 arrobas of sugar.

This sugar was consumed in Madeira, in Portugal and in many foreign countries, the royal decree (alvará) of 26 August 1503 having abolished the restrictions to which its export had previously been subject.

The royal decree of 22 March 1498 allowed foreigners permanent residence on the island, which had been denied them by the regulations (regimento) of 7 October 1496, and the letter of 21 January 1511 granted these same foreigners the right to load sugar for export.

This sugar paid duty at the customs houses; from 1512 onwards this clearance was carried out solely at the Funchal customs house.

In 1507 sugar sold for 315 réis per arroba, and in 1511 for 300 réis. The main cause of the decline of the sugar industry in Madeira was the flood of sugar from Brazil and from the Spanish colonies in America into European markets. In 1612 Madeira was still exporting some sugar, but by 1649 many of its mills were already in ruins, and few remained in 1730.

In 1736 Madeira began to import this commodity from abroad. It never stopped doing so, on a larger or smaller scale, until sugar-cane growing was re-established after Oidium Tuckery had destroyed the vineyards.

Between 1823 and 1826 Madeira produced an insignificant quantity of sugar, but in 1861 production stood at 275,802 kilograms. Between 1870 and 1873 it rose to between 800,000 and 900,000 kilograms a year. In more recent times sugar production has been as follows:

Year	Quantity (kg)
1898	648,500
1899	442,000
1900	442,000
1905	800,000
1906	1,053,000
1908	1,823,350
1910	2,973,000
1911	3,204,000
1912	4,161,550
1913	4,260,928
1914	4,796,725
1915	4,917,113
1916	4,943,675

These figures do not include the colonial sugar that the island imported. Local consumption of sugar was 1,102,545 kilograms in 1908; 837,500 in 1912; 1,656,310 kilograms in 1916, when the surplus production was exported to Portugal; and 3,069,143 kilograms in 1938, when 399,780 kilograms were exported to the mainland.

According to Dr Azevedo, the export of Madeiran sugar in modern times began in 1854. It grew rapidly from 1858 and reached its peak in 1871 and 1872, amounting to 561,837 kilograms in the first of these years and 567,526 kilograms in the second. It then fell by half in 1873 and declined further and further until 1881. The old manufacturers used to say that 100 kilograms of Bourbon cane, a very rich cane, yielded about 7 to 9 kilograms of sugar, even though the manufacturing methods then in use were very rudimentary. Today it is known that the average sugar yield of Yuba cane varies between 9 and 101, a fact to be attributed chiefly to the improvement of the manufacturing methods employed.

Under Madeira’s sugar regime (regime sacarino, the legal framework governing sugar production), the price of sugar is set according to the price of cane. First-quality sugar, which in 1914 sold at 29 centavos, rose the following year to 31 centavos and then rose step by step until it reached 36 centavos per kilogram. In 1900 this sugar sold at 26.5 to 27.5 centavos, and many years earlier its price had ranged between 20 and 24 centavos per kilogram. In 1939 it costs 4.20 escudos (the Portuguese currency from 1911: 1 escudo = 100 centavos = 1,000 réis) at the factory and 4.40 escudos in the retail trade.

Second-quality sugar, which sold at 24 and 25 centavos per kilogram in 1910, stood at 28 centavos in 1914, then rose to 30 and finally to 33 centavos. Before the war this sugar was sold to the Lisbon refineries at 18 and 19 centavos per kilogram.

Sugar is made by the Fábrica do Torreão (‘turret’). Decree no. 23,847 of 14 May 1934, with reference to Decree no. 16,003 of 29 October 1928, lays down that until 1953, or for as long as a rise in consumption does not justify it, no new sugar and alcohol factories may be built, the productive capacity of the existing one may not be increased, and a factory that is only a distillery may not be adapted to make sugar. All of them may, however, make the necessary improvements to their machinery under the terms of the law.

Since 1935 sugar production has in principle been restricted to local consumption. Because this limitation is combined with the obligation to buy all cane of a certain grade, the current regime guarantees the industry the Madeiran market. If there is surplus sugar in any industrial year, up to a maximum of 200 tonnes may be shipped to mainland Portugal without payment of duties, although larger exports have exceptionally been permitted for special reasons in the interest of agriculture and industry.