If sugar costs $1.70/kg, but takes 100kgs of sugarcane and over 2000L of water to produce that 1 kg, how is the end product profitable?

Question

If sugar costs $1.70/kg, but takes 100kgs of sugarcane and over 2000L of water to produce that 1 kg, how is the end product profitable?

In: 300

Answer 1

The water comes mostly from tropical rains, of which there are plenty. And the labor is done largely by poor laborers in similarly poor countries who do not make very much money (the wealthiest country with significant sugarcane production is Brazil, a middle income country, and many others are poorer).