Much of the land was bought from the owners of large farms and sugar cane plantations, who were paid a pittance for their homes and given twenty-four hours to evacuate.
Living conditions on the sugar cane plantations, on which most of the "girmityas" (indentured labourers) worked, were often squalid, degrading and brutal.
These would convert agricultural residues such as corn stover, wheat straw, and sugar cane bagasse and energy crops such as switchgrass into fermentable sugars.
