#Robert M. Harveson

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Napoleon and Sugar Production and Trade

A little bit about how the sugar industry was transformed during the Napoleonic Wars. Specifically, how sugar beet substituted and replaced sugar cane.

From Robert M. Harveson, History of sugarbeets, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (source)

“Sugar was only obtained from the tropical sugar cane and was prohibitively expensive for most Europeans. During the early 1800’s most sugar was obtained from the West Indies. After supplies were cut off by the English blockade of continental Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, the demand for sugar grew throughout Europe. Napoleon encouraged new research with sugar beets, and between 1810 and 1815, over 79,000 acres were put into production with more than 300 small factories being built in France.”

From R. N. Dowling, Sugar Beet and Beet Sugar:

“Napoleon I, brought real life into the new industry. As a farsighted statesman, he recognized the great advantages connected with a future beet sugar industry that would produce at home all the sugar needed by his people. For this reason he at once, by a decree of 1812, appropriated 100,000 hectares, or 247,100 acres, exclusively for the cultivation of sugar beets and 1,000,000 francs for experiments in connection with beet raising and sugar extraction.”

The trade war:

“The interest of Napoleon was due to the continental blockade that excluded all products manufactured in England and her colonies from the European markets. As a consequence the price of cane sugar rose to an extraordinary height: it was more than 30 cents per pound in the period from 1807 to 1815. Under such circumstances the erection of beet sugar factories was a very profitable investment of capital and it is, therefore, not to be wondered at that in France, as early as 1812 some 40 factories were in operation, working up 98,813 tons of beets obtained from 16,758 acres, and yielding a total output of 3,300,000 Ibs. of sugar. For the first time in the history beet sugar came to compete with the tropical product. From very modest beginnings in the first quarter of the nineteenth century the beet sugar industry grew to the enormous dimensions of today, crowding out cane sugar from the markets of the European continent and successfully competing with the tropical product in many other countries.”

(From R. N. Dowling)

Long-term impact—Sugar beet today:

“Of the current world production of more than 130 million metric tons of sugar, about 35% comes from sugar beet and 65% from sugar cane. In the USA, about 50-55% of the domestic production of about 8.4 million metric tons derives from sugar beet.”

(From Robert M. Harveson)