On the fields of sugar cane that have underpinned Caribbean economies for centuries, a dramatic change is under way. Noisy mills with grinders that once produced sugar are being silenced - replaced by distilleries producing ethanol.

"Cane producers are convinced that ethanol is the fuel of the future and that the cane is our green petroleum," says Bernardino Diaz of the Dominican Republic's Federation of Sugar Cane Producers. "If we can produce ethanol, the country would earn thousands of millions of dollars."