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Local farmers queue up to sell their sugarcane to the mill in Hariawan, Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest sugarcane-producing region. Unlike in Brazil, land laws in India prevent consolidation of farmland, so the mill, owned by DCM Shriram—one of India’s largest sugar and ethanol producers—buys its sugarcane from some eighty thousand smallholders who live within 30 miles. Most farm two to five acres, harvest the cane by hand, and sell it to the mill at a government-regulated price—around $46 per ton when this photograph was taken. The mill buys some 2 million tons of cane each year to produce 240,000 tons of sugar and 24 million gallons of ethanol, as well as electricity for the local power grid. Almost all the sugarcane plant is used in some way: Stripped off the stalk, the green leaves are fed to livestock, while the brown leaves are composted and returned to the soil. India is the largest consumer of sugar in the world by far, but on a per capita basis, Indians consume about half as much sugar as Americans.

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Local farmers queue up to sell their sugarcane to the mill in Hariawan, Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest sugarcane-producing region. Unlike in Brazil, land laws in India prevent consolidation of farmland, so the mill, owned by DCM Shriram—one of India’s largest sugar and ethanol producers—buys its sugarcane from some eighty thousand smallholders who live within 30 miles. Most farm two to five acres, harvest the cane by hand, and sell it to the mill at a government-regulated price—around $46 per ton when this photograph was taken. The mill buys some 2 million tons of cane each year to produce 240,000 tons of sugar and 24 million gallons of ethanol, as well as electricity for the local power grid. Almost all the sugarcane plant is used in some way: Stripped off the stalk, the green leaves are fed to livestock, while the brown leaves are composted and returned to the soil. India is the largest consumer of sugar in the world by far, but on a per capita basis, Indians consume about half as much sugar as Americans.

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