History:
– First cane sugar mill in Fiji built in 1872 by Brewster and Joske
– By end of 1878, ten mills were in operation
– Surviving mills after 1884 crash: Navua, Panang, Holmshurst, Rewa Sugar Company
– Colonial Sugar Refining Company established commercially viable mills
– CSR owned five mills in Fiji by 1926
List of sugar mills:
– Suva Sugar Mill (1872-1875)
– Selia Levu Estate (Taveuni) (1874-1890)
– Penang (Rakiraki) Sugar Mill (1878-2016)
– Nausori Sugar Mill (1882-1959)
– Rarawai (Ba) Sugar Mill (from 1886)
See also:
– Rail transport in Fiji
– Cane trains
– Trapiche
References:
– Fiji Times: A history of Fiji, Kim Gravelle, Fiji Times, Suva, Fiji, 1979
– The Fiji Sugar Industry: a brief history and overview of its structure and operations
– Cane Train: The Sugar-cane Railways of Fiji
– Brown or white? a history of the Fiji sugar industry, 1873-1973
Sugar cane grew wild in Fiji and was used as thatch by the Fijians for their houses (bures). The first attempt to make sugar in Fiji was on Wakaya Island in 1862 but this was a financial failure. With the cotton boom of the 1860s there was little incentive to plant a crop that required high capital outlay but after a slump in cotton prices in 1870, the planters turned to sugar. In an effort to promote the production of sugar in Fiji, the Cakobau Government, in December 1871, offered a 500-pound reward for the first and best crop of twenty of sugar from canes planted before January 1873.