Producing countries

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 481.

The five largest producers of sugar in 2011 were Brazil, India, the European Union, China and Thailand. In the same year, the largest exporter of sugar was Brazil, distantly followed by Thailand, Australia and India. The largest importers were the European Union, United States and Indonesia. Currently, Brazil has the highest per capita consumption of sugar, followed by Australia, Thailand and the European Union.

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a distinct aroma and flavor, prepared from the roasted seeds of the Coffea plant. The seeds are found in coffee "cherries", which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, India and Africa. Green (unroasted) coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. Coffee is slightly acidic (pH 5.0–5.1) and can have a stimulating effect on humans because of its caffeine content. It is one of the most consumed drinks in the world.

Wild coffee's energizing effect was likely first discovered in the northeast region of Ethiopia. Coffee cultivation first took place in southern Arabia; the earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen.

In East Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in native religious ceremonies that were in competition with the Christian Church. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its secular consumption until the reign of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia. The beverage was also banned in Ottoman Turkey during the 17th century for political reasons and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe.

Coffee berries, which contain the coffee seeds, are produced by several species of a small evergreen bush of the genus Coffea. The two most commonly grown are also the most highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the "robusta" form of the hardier Coffea canephora. The latter is resistant to the devastating coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix). Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried. The seeds are then roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor, before being ground and brewed to create coffee. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways.

An important export commodity, coffee was the top agricultural export for twelve countries in 2004, and it was the world's seventh-largest legal agricultural export by value in 2005. Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Consequently, organic coffee is an expanding market.

Many studies have examined the health effects of coffee, and whether the overall effects of coffee consumption are positive or negative has been widely disputed. The majority of recent research suggests that moderate coffee consumption is benign or mildly beneficial in healthy adults. However, coffee can worsen the symptoms of some conditions, largely due to the caffeine and diterpenes it contains.

Coffee is an important commodity and a popular beverage. Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world every day. Over 90% of coffee production takes place in developing countries, while consumption happens mainly in the industrialized economies.

Worldwide, 25 million small producers rely on coffee for a living. For instance, in Brazil alone, where almost a third of all the world's coffee is produced, over 5 million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants; it is a much more labour-intensive culture than alternative cultures of the same regions as sugar cane or cattle, as it is not subject to automation and requires constant attention.

Coffee is also bought and sold as a commodity on the New York Board of Trade. This is where coffee futures contracts are traded, which are a financial asset involving a standardized contract for the future sale or purchase of a unit of coffee at an agreed price. The world's largest transfer point for coffee is the port of Hamburg, Germany.

The coffee industry currently has a commodity chain that involves producers, middlemen exporters, importers, roasters, and retailers before reaching the consumer. Middlemen exporters, often referred to as coffee "coyotes," purchase coffee directly from small farmers. Large coffee estates and plantations often export their own harvests or have direct arrangements with a transnational coffee processing or distributing company. Under either arrangement, large producers can sell at prices set by the New York Coffee Exchange.

Green coffee is then purchased by importers from exporters or large plantation owners. Importers hold inventory of large container loads, which they sell gradually through numerous small orders. They have capital resources to obtain quality coffee from around the world, capital normal roasters do not have. Roasters' heavy reliance on importers gives the importers great influence over the types of coffee that are sold to consumers.

In the United States, there are around 1,200 roasters. Roasters have the highest profit margin in the commodity chain. Large roasters normally sell pre-packaged coffee to large retailers, such as Maxwell House, Folgers and Millstone.

Coffee reaches the consumers through cafes and specialty stores selling coffee, of which, approximately, 30% are chains, and through supermarkets and traditional retail chains. Supermarkets and traditional retail chains hold about 60% of market share and are the primary channel for both specialty coffee and non-specialty coffee. Twelve billion pounds of coffee is consumed around the globe annually, and the United States alone has over 130 million coffee drinkers.

Coffee is also bought and sold by investors and price speculators as a tradable commodity. Coffee futures contracts are traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) under ticker symbol KC with contract deliveries occurring every year in March, May, July, September, and December.

Tea is an aromatic beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. It has a cooling, slightly bitter, and astringent flavour that many people enjoy.

Tea likely originated in China during the Shang Dynasty as a medicinal drink. Tea was first introduced to Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the 16th century. Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17th century. The British introduced tea to India, in order to compete with the Chinese monopoly on tea.

Tea has historically been promoted for having a variety of positive health benefits, and recent human studies suggest that green tea may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer, promote oral health, reduce blood pressure, help with weight control, improve antibacterial and antivirasic activity, provide protection from solar ultraviolet light, increase bone mineral density, and have "anti-fibrotic properties, and neuroprotective power." Additional research is needed to "fully understand its contributions to human health, and advise its regular consumption in Western diets."

Consumption of tea (especially green) is potentially beneficial to health and longevity given its antioxidant, flavanols, flavonoids, polyphenols, and catechins content. Tea catechins have known anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective activities, help to regulate food intake, and have an affinity for cannabinoid receptors, which may suppress pain, nausea, and provide calming effects.

Consumption of green tea is associated with a lower risk of diseases that cause functional disability, such as “stroke, cognitive impairment, and osteoporosis” in the elderly.

Tea contains L-theanine, and its consumption is strongly associated with a calm but alert and focused, relatively productive (alpha wave dominant), mental state in humans. This mental state is also common to meditative practice.

The phrase "herbal tea" usually refers to infusions of fruit or herbs made without the tea plant, such as rosehip tea, chamomile tea, or rooibos tea. Alternative phrases for this are tisane or herbal infusion, both bearing an implied contrast with "tea" as it is construed here.

Tea is the most popular manufactured drink in the world in terms of consumption. Its consumption equals all other manufactured drinks in the world – including coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, and alcohol – put together. Most tea consumed outside East Asia is produced on large plantations in the hilly regions of India and Sri Lanka, and is destined to be sold to large businesses. Opposite this large-scale industrial production are many small "gardens," sometimes minuscule plantations, that produce highly sought-after teas prized by gourmets. These teas are both rare and expensive, and can be compared to some of the most expensive wines in this respect.

India is the world's largest tea-drinking nation, although the per capita consumption of tea remains a modest 750 grams per person every year. Turkey, with 2.5 kg of tea consumed per person per year, is the world's greatest per capita consumer.

In 2003, world tea production was 3.21 million tonnes annually. In 2010, world tea production reached over 4.52 million tonnes. The largest producers of tea are the People's Republic of China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.

The following table shows the amount of tea production (in tonnes) by leading countries in recent years. Data are generated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as of February 2012.

Country
China	1,274,984	1,375,780	1,467,467
India	987,000	972,700	991,180
Kenya	345,800	314,100	399,000
Sri Lanka	318,700	290,000	282,300
Turkey	198,046	198,601	235,000
Vietnam	173,500	185,700	198,466
Iran	165,717	165,717	165,717
Indonesia	150,851	146,440	150,000
Argentina	80,142	71,715	88,574
Japan	96,500	86,000	85,000
Total	4,211,397	4,242,280	4,518,060

Certification. Workers who pick and pack tea on plantations in developing countries can face harsh working conditions and can earn below the living wage.

Trade. According to the FAO in 2007, the largest importer of tea, by weight, was the Russian Federation, followed by the United Kingdom, Pakistan, and the United States. Kenya, China, India and Sri Lanka were the largest exporters of tea in 2007 (with exports of: 374229, 292199, 193459 and 190203 tonnes respectively). The largest exporter of black tea in the world is Kenya, while the largest producer (and consumer) of black tea in the world is India.

Cacao bean also cocoa bean, often simply cocoa and cacao. Cocoa is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted. They are the basis of chocolate, as well as many Mesoamerican foods such as mole sauce and tejate.

A cocoa pod (fruit) has a rough and leathery rind about 3 cm thick (this varies with the origin and variety of pod). It is filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp (called 'baba de cacao' in South America) enclosing 30 to 50 large seeds that are fairly soft and white to a pale lavender color. While seeds are usually white, they become violet or reddish brown during the drying process. The exception is rare varieties of white cacao, in which the seeds remain white. Historically, white cacao was cultivated by the Rama people of Nicaragua.

More than 3,000,000 tonnes (3,000,000 long tons; 3,300,000 short tons) of cocoa are produced each year. The global production was

1974: 1,556,484 tons,

1984: 1,810,611 tons,

1994: 2,672,173 tons,

2004: 3,607,052 tons.

The production increased by 131.7% in 30 years, representing a compound annual growth rate of 2.9%.

There are three main varieties of cocoa plant: Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario. The first is the most widely used, comprising 95% of the world production of cocoa. Overall, the highest quality cocoa beans come from the Criollo variety, which is considered a delicacy.

Criollo plantations have lower yields than those of Forastero, and also tend to be less resistant to several diseases that attack the cocoa plant, hence very few countries still produce it. One of the largest producers of Criollo beans is Venezuela (Chuao and Porcelana). Hacienda San José, located in Paria/Venezuela, cultivates Criollo beans. The total area of this hacienda is 320 hectares, of which 185 hectares are devoted to cacao, with a density of 1.000 plants per hectare. Trinitario is a hybrid between Criollo and Forastero varieties. It is considered to be of much higher quality than the latter, but has higher yields and is more resistant to disease than the former.

There are different metrics used for chocolate consumption. The Netherlands has the highest monetary amount of cocoa bean imports (US$2.1 billion); it is also one of the main ports into Europe. The United States has highest amount of cocoa powder imports ($220 million); the US has a large amount of cocoa complementary products. The United Kingdom has the highest amount of retail chocolate ($1.3 billion) and is one of the biggest chocolate consumption per capita markets.

Cocoa and its products (including chocolate) are used worldwide. Per capita consumption is poorly understood, with numerous countries claiming the highest: various reports state Switzerland, Belgium, and the UK have the highest consumption, but it can be claimed that because there is no clear mechanism to determine how much of a country's production is consumed by residents and how much by visitors, this is all speculative.

There were 3.54 million tonnes of cocoa beans produced in the 2008–2009 growing year, which runs from October to September. Of this total, African nations produced 2.45 million tonnes (69%), Asia and Oceania produced 0.61 million tonnes (17%) and the Americas produced 0.48 million tonnes (14%). Two African nations, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, produce more than half of the world's cocoa, with 1.23 and 0.73 million tonnes respectively (35% and 21%, respectively). The largest cocoa bean-producing countries in the world are as follows.

Country	Amount produced	Percentage of world production
Côte d'Ivoire	1.23 million tons	34.7%
Ghana	746 thousand tons	20.6%
Indonesia	489 thousand tons	13.8%
Cameroon	220 thousand tons	5.9%
Nigeria	210 thousand tons	5.9%
Brazil	165 thousand tons	4.7%
Ecuador	130 thousand tons	3.7%
Malaysia	32 thousand tons	0.9%
Top Cocoa Beans Producers in 2010
(million metric tons)
Ivory Coast	1.242
Indonesia	0.844
Ghana	0.632
Nigeria	0.360
Cameroon	0.264
Brazil	0.235
Ecuador	0.132
Togo	0.102
Dominican Republic	0.058
Peru	0.047
World Total	4.082

Cocoa beans, cocoa butter and cocoa powder are traded on two world exchanges: NYSE Euronext and IntercontinentalExchange (ICE). The London market is based on West African cocoa and New York on cocoa predominantly from Southeast Asia. Cocoa is the world's smallest soft commodity market.

The future price of cocoa butter and cocoa powder is determined by multiplying the bean price by a ratio. The combined butter and powder ratio has tended to be around 3.5. If the combined ratio falls below 3.2 or so, production ceases to be economically viable and some factories cease extraction of butter and powder and trade exclusively in cocoa liquor.

Cocoa beans can be held in storage for several years in bags or in bulk, during which the ownership can change several times, as the cocoa is traded much the same as metal or other commodities, to gain profit for the owner.

In July 2010, British hedge fund Armajaro, headed by speculator Anthony Ward, purchased 241,000 tonnes of cocoa beans. The purchase was valued at £658 million and caused cocoa bean prices to rise to their highest level since 1977.

A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetative substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Sometimes a spice is used to hide other flavors.

Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are parts of leafy green plants also used for flavoring or as garnish.

Many spices have antimicrobial properties. This may explain why spices are more commonly used in warmer climates, which have more infectious disease, and why use of spices is especially prominent in meat, which is particularly susceptible to spoiling. A spice may have other uses, including medicinal, religious ritual, cosmetics or perfume production, or as a vegetable. For example, turmeric roots are consumed as a vegetable and garlic as an antibiotic.

India produces 70% of global spice production.

Top 10 spices producers in 2010
Country	Production (tonnes)	Footnote
India	1,051,000	Im
Bangladesh	128,517
Turkey	107,000	*
China	81,600	Im
Pakistan	53,647
Nepal	20,400	Im
Colombia	14,900	Im
Iran	11,500	Im
Burkina Faso	5,800	Im
Sri Lanka	5,200	Im
World	1,545,734	A
* = Unofficial figure | [ ] = Official data | A = May include official, semi-official or estimated data F = FAO estimate | Im = FAO data based on imputation methodology | M = Data not available Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)[17]

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, as initially produced, consists of suitable polymers of the organic compound isoprene with minor impurities of other organic compounds plus water. Forms of polyisoprene that are useful as natural rubbers are classified as elastomers. Currently the rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from certain trees. The latex is a sticky, milky colloid drawn off by making incisions into the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels. This process is called "tapping". The latex then is refined into rubber ready for commercial processing. Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, either alone or in combination with other materials. In most of its useful forms it has a large stretch ratio, high resilience, and is extremely waterproof.

The para rubber tree is indigenous to South America. Charles Marie de La Condamine is credited with introducing samples of rubber to the Académie Royale des Sciences of France in 1736. In 1751, he presented a paper by François Fresneau to the Académie (eventually published in 1755) which described many of the properties of rubber. This has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber. In England, it was observed by Joseph Priestley, in 1770, that a piece of the material was extremely good for rubbing off pencil marks on paper, hence the name rubber. Later it slowly made its way around England.

South America remained the main source of the limited amounts of latex rubber that were used during much of the 19th century. In 1876, Henry Wickham gathered thousands of para rubber tree seeds from Brazil, and these were germinated in Kew Gardens, England. The seedlings were then sent to India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia, Singapore and British Malaya. Malaya (nowMalaysia) was later to become the biggest producer of rubber. In the early 1900s, the Congo Free State in Africa was also a significant source of natural rubber latex, mostly gathered by forced labor. Liberia and Nigeria also started production of rubber.

In India, commercial cultivation of natural rubber was introduced by the British planters, although the experimental efforts to grow rubber on a commercial scale in India were initiated as early as 1873 at the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. The first commercial Hevea plantations in India were established at Thattekadu in Kerala in 1902.

In Singapore and Malaya, commercial production of rubber was heavily promoted by Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley, who served as the first Scientific Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens from 1888 to 1911. He distributed rubber seeds to many planters and developed the first technique for tapping trees for latex without causing serious harm to the tree. ^[4] Because of his very fervent promotion of this crop, he is popularly remembered by the nickname "Mad Ridley".

Rubber exhibits unique physical and chemical properties. Rubber's stress-strain behavior exhibits the Mullins effect, the Payne effect, and is often modeled as hyperelastic. Rubber strain crystallizes.

Owing to the presence of a double bond in each repeat unit, natural rubber is susceptible to vulcanisation and sensitive to ozone cracking.

There are two main solvents for rubber: turpentine and naphtha (petroleum). The former has been in use since 1764 when François Fresnau made the discovery. Giovanni Fabbroni is credited with the discovery of naphtha as a rubber solvent in 1779. Because rubber does not dissolve easily, the material is finely divided by shredding prior to its immersion.

An ammonia solution can be used to prevent the coagulation of raw latex while it is being transported from its collection site.

Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with the overall administrative, economic, legal and social aspects and with the essentially scientific and technical aspects, especially silviculture, protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for aesthetics, fish, recreation, urban values, water, wilderness, wildlife, wood products, forest genetic resources and other forest resource values. Management can be based on conservation, economics, or a mixture of the two. Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of various species, cutting roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.

A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands. Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or pressing fibres together (felt).

The words fabric and cloth are used in textile assembly trades (such as tailoring and dressmaking) as synonyms for textile. However, there are subtle differences in these terms in specialized usage. Textile refers to any material made of interlacing fibres. Fabric refers to any material made through weaving, knitting, spreading, crocheting, or bonding that may be used in production of further goods (garments, etc.). Cloth may be used synonymously with fabric but often refers to a finished piece of fabric used for a specific purpose (e.g., table cloth).

Textiles can be made from many materials. These materials come from four main sources: animal (wool, silk), plant (cotton, flax, jute), mineral (asbestos, glass fibre), and synthetic (nylon, polyester, acrylic). In the past, all textiles were made from natural fibres, including plant, animal, and mineral sources. In the 20th century, these were supplemented by artificial fibres made from petroleum.

Textiles are made in various strengths and degrees of durability, from the finest gossamer to the sturdiest canvas. The relative thickness of fibres in cloth is measured in deniers. Microfibre refers to fibres made of strands thinner than one denier.