A woman gathers Gum Arabic in Kordofan, Sudan
Since prehistoric times humans have used gums and resins extracted from trees and bushes, plants and seaweeds, seeds and grains.
The international trade in gum arabic is a story of people and power,
of massive greed and terrible poverty, of globalisation and consumer
choice. Gum, which features in the Bible, Torah and Koran, is a miracle
of science, impossible to synthesize or replicate, and still used around
the world as it has been for over five thousand years.
Gum arabic, which comes from the acacia tree, is unique among natural
gums because of its extreme solubility in water and its lack of taste
or odour.
After millennia of human testing, it also appears to be one of the
safest food additives for human consumption. This is important as it
means that in the US, unlike synthetic additives, gum arabic can be
labelled as “Acceptable Daily Intake Not Specified" meaning unlimited
quantities can be added to food products, even for children.
Since it is organic, naturally occurring, high in fibre and low in
fat, gum is also suitable for use in a wide range of nutritional and
dietary applications.
In beverages, gum arabic reduces a liquid’s surface tension, leading
to increased fizzing in carbonated drinks. It stops orange squash going
cloudy, gives wine its rich, uniform colour and beer its frothy head.
In confectionery, glazes and whipped creams, gum arabic retards the
crystallization of sugar, thickens chewing gums and jellies and makes
candies feel softer in the mouth.
High solubility and low viscosity also makes gum an ideal emulsifier,
binder, stabiliser, thickener and adhesive, suitable for use in many
other products and processes. It is used as a flocculant in geological
prospecting, a catalytic agent in petroleum refining, in fireproofing,
to treat industrial effluents, inhibit metal corrosion, make glues,
pesticides and even pumpable liquid cement.
Sudan is the world’s biggest gum producer and about 70% of the
world's gum arabic supply comes from acacia trees in the Sahel region,
the so-called “gum belt”, which stretches across sub-Saharan Africa from
Mauritania to Somalia.
Scarred by war and poverty, even before the recent conflict erupted
the gum belt was the most anarchic and impoverished part of the globe.
Water is so scarce many households survive on just a few litres a day.
Modern infrastructure is rudimentary or non-existent. Gum farmers are
among the poorest people on earth.
For the international firms that process African gum arabic, on the
other hand, the product is a lucrative business. Before raw gum can be
used in food production and industrial processes, first it has to be
cleaned, sieved, crushed or even turned into a fine spray. This is a
complex process that requires considerable investment and advanced
technology. Half a dozen major refining companies, all situated in
Europe or the USA, process most of the world’s gum, some still owned and run by the same European families who set them up in colonial times.
By using their influence over Sudan’s national gum exporting company,
Western firms can exert control over the market and ensure a bumper
return on their investment while keeping the price paid to Sudanese
farmers for raw gum low.
In 2001 the refining and processing companies lobbied Sudan’s
national assembly to reverse a presidential decree abolishing their
monopoly on Sudan’s gum arabic trade. Since Sudanese gum is taken as the
benchmark price for gum across the gum belt, the cartel’s activity has
implications for gum farmers everywhere.
The USA is the largest single end market for gum arabic today,
accounting for approximately 30% of global trade, mostly in the soft
drinks and confectionary industry.
Western policymakers and corporates have long fretted about depending
on an unstable region for such a vital commodity, concerns which
reached their apex in 1997 when, renewing economic sanctions on Sudan
for supporting terrorism, President Clinton made a special exception for
gum arabic after US trade giants including the National Soft Drinks
Association of America and the Newspaper Association of America (who
need gum to make ink stick to their newspapers) protested that without
Sudanese gum arabic they would all go out of business.
After 9/11, as US companies feverishly re-assessed their links to
businesses with potential terrorist connections, rumours circulated that
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had controlled up to 80% of Sudanese
gum production, shaking up the soda industry to the extent some brands
like Snapple re-labelled gum arabic as ‘gum acacia’ on their bottles.
Since then western firms have searched high and low for other sources
of gum arabic, or any synthetic alternative equally safe for human
consumption, but synthetic gum and chemically modified colloids have
consistently proved inferior or unsafe and attempts to cultivate gum
arabic outside the gum belt have largely failed because gum trees will
only produce gum in the extreme climatic conditions of the Sahara which
vary from below freezing to upwards of 45 degrees Centigrade (113°F).
At a bizarre press conference
held in 2007 at the Washington Press Club Sudan's then ambassador to
the United States John Ukec Lueth Ukec waving a Coke bottle stated: "I
want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all
over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is
imported from my country".
When a reporter then asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the
export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world" Ukec replied: "I
can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," gesturing
to the Coca Cola bottle.
His threat proved an empty one but this time around a shortage of gum
arabic in Western economies might just focus minds and bring pressure
to bear on Sudan’s brawling generals to end a conflict that has already
cost hundreds of lives.