The Course of Successful Sustainable Sugar Production in Colonial Java, Dutch East Indies (1870–1930)

By the late 16th and early 17th centuries, sugar cane was widely grown as a plantation crop in America and the Caribbean region. Except for Batavia on Java Island, sugarcane became a peasant crop in Southeast Asia. Sugar became one of the primary cash crop plantations in Java after the colonial Dutch implemented the cultivation system. Java became the world’s second-largest sugar exporter after Cuba when the government-run Cultivation System was replaced by a commercial production system in the 1870s. Therefore, this article explores the sugar economy of colonial Java and its course of sustaining the success of sugar production from the 1870s to the 1930s. Considering this, the study argues that three developments have helped Java build a strong sugar economy and sustain its peak of success in sugar production and marketing for more than half a century. First, the sugar industry was rapidly industrialized. Second, Java’s natural and human resource environments were favorable. Third, the establishment and success of sugar cane research and experimentation centres. However, the success of the sugar sector was challenged by the economic crisis, the Second World War, and the Indonesian Revolution, which turned Java out of the international sugar market.