Sugarcane belongs to the grass family, Poaceae, an economically important seed plant family that includes maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum, and many forage crops.

According to the botanical history of Sugarcane, it belongs to the family of several species of tall perennial true grasses of the genus Saccharum, also said to be of the Andropogoneae tribe.

The sugarcane produces an irresistible sugary juice enjoyed by both the poor and the rich, male and female. It comes in stout, jointed fibrous stalks that are rich in the sugar sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes.

The plant is two to six metres (six to twenty feet) tall. All sugar cane species can interbreed and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids.

During its boom period, sugarcane is found not only along the streets where hawkers trade it in different forms, but in many of the elites’ eateries, social rendezvous and homes.

While you buy from the street hawkers with as low as N50, the extracted juice in some of the eateries in the town goes for up to N1000, depending on the size of the container, packaging and the location.

Sugary juice

Patricia James is a juice seller in one of the popular gardens in Area 8, Garki Abuja. She said that very important personalities come to book for the sugarcane juice in her cafeteria.

James who said she had been in the business for just six months, noted that during the season of sugarcane, other fruit juices are usually sold on a low scale because more people go for sugarcane juice.

“Since I started working here, people who come here to place orders for sugarcane juice don’t look like poor people. We sell 75 cl for N1000 and during the season like now , we sell more of sugarcane juice.

People said it cures many sicknesses, but that I don’t know, because I am not a medical personal”, James said. Mrs. Gloria Umar like many other sellers of sugarcane in Abuja does not care to know the origin of the ‘ cane ‘ that ironically is producing unbelievable sweetness and nutritional values, even financial empowerment.

All she cares to know about and also ready at all times to discuss, is how to enhance the prospect and the sweetness from the cane that has helped to lubricate her family’s economic wheels over the years.

The middle -aged woman is not only proud to be called a sugarcane seller, but wants to tell people about the unbelievable transformation which the sugarcane business has done to her life and her family’s welfare.

Inside Abuja’s encounter with her and some of the sellers of sugarcane in the Federal Capital Territory, revealed not just the secret behind the periodic boom of sugarcane business, but the hidden nutritional values in its juice.

Though, they may not understand it’s botanical history, they are ever ready to announce that sugarcane is ” good for the body and gives us good money “.

Financial benefits

Gloria Umar, who has a depot where trucks off load bundles of sugarcane almost every week, at Kuruduma village, Guzape District, was so proud to announce that she is not just a petty seller of sugarcane, but a major off-taker.

Umar who hails from Kaduna state but lives in Abuja stated that she buys large hectare of land in Kafanchan where sugarcane farmers have considerable large plantation. She said that once the sugarcane matures in the farm, all she does is to get labourers who helps to harvest them for her.

Even though, she couldn’t give the exact size of the plantation she usually buy, she noted that she pays up to N400,000 to buy a large plantation which she harvest up to three times.

According to her, in each harvest, up to 200 bundles of 10 canes are realised, and when sold she gets up to N300,000 from each trip. She said that each bundle of 10 is sold for N1,500 to retailers who comes to her deport to buy.

“I bring the sugarcane from Kafanchan Kaduna state. I use to buy a plantation of sugarcane in hectare, and harvest it in bits. When I harvest 200 bundles of 10, which I sell for N1,500, I get up to N300,000.

The 200 bundle is gotten from less than half of the plantation. When I harvest the whole hectare and sell, I make more than N200,000 profit after all the expenses which include transportation. “This business is however, a periodic one.

I have built houses from this business within he few years I have been into it. With this business, I am helping my family and the family’s economic fortune had improved.

“They say Sugarcane cures hepatitis. In the hospital, patients who have certain ailments are always advised to take sugarcane juice.

I want the government to help me with funds to enable me expand the business, to help me take the sugarcane to other parts of the country”, she said.

Health benefits

Inside Abuja also gathered that apart from the monetary values accruing from sugarcane business, the health and nutritional values are also enormous. Several research results have also lent credence to many claims that sugarcane juice helps to ameliorate effects of some health conditions, while it also cures some.

A nutritionist, Mrs. Elizabeth Okemdi said that the claims that sugarcane cures some illnesses may not be far from the truth.

Okemdi, who works with a private healthcare organization in Abuja disclosed that while she had not done an extensive research to determine the whole values of sugarcane, she had the opportunity of interacting with several individuals who had attested to the medicinal values found in sugarcane juice.

According to her, sugarcane juice can be helpful in strengthening the liver and can also serve as a potent remedy for jaundice. “Jaundice is a condition where you find yellow pigmentation of the skin and membrane due to elevated levels of a substance known as bilirubin in the bodily fluids and is triggered by poor functioning liver.

What sugarcane juice does is replenish your body with proteins lost and nutrients that it needs to recover quickly” she said.

She also confirmed a research report which suggested that another important health benefit of sugarcane juice is due to ” it being rich in the good kind of carbohydrates, protein, iron, potassium and other essential nutrients that make it the ideal energy drinks.

Especially in the summer months, a glass of cold sugarcane juice and really life both your health and your depleting levels of energy. It builds up plasma and body fluids and helps counter dryness and fatigue”.