Sugar industry receives investment boost

The South African Cane Growers’ Association (SA Canegrowers) recently announced that, with the disbursement of transformation funding this month, the sugar industry had met its objective of investing more than R1 billion in transformation funding over five years.

“As the industry has endured waves of crises over the past five years, the funding has been critical in sustaining the livelihoods of more than 21 000 small-scale growers and their farmworkers,” it said.

The South African Sugar Association distributed nearly R176 million in dedicated transformation funding last month alone. “This brings the total paid out to small-scale and black growers as well as land reform beneficiaries between 2019/20 and 2023/24 to more than R1 billion. These payments, to which growers contribute 64%, have been distributed biannually over the five-year period.”

Through these payments, the struggling industry had been able to help the most vulnerable people absorb the shocks caused by droughts and floods, cheap sugar imports, the Health Promotion Levy, COVID-19, and the ongoing crisis in parts of the milling industry.

“The funding commitment also supported the objectives of the Sugarcane Value Chain Master Plan, the first three-year phase of which concluded in 2023. Since the conclusion of that phase, industry stakeholders have worked together to conceptualise a framework for a second phase of the master plan. This new phase would help to continue the work of the first phase, protecting vital jobs within the industry and restructuring it for a sustainable, diversified future,” said SA Canegrowers.

It said that as Parliament was about to reopen, government’s support was essential to the industry, by reaffirming its commitment to prioritise the procurement of locally-produced sugar, and by halting all plans to increase the ‘sugar tax’ that has contributed to the hardships faced by the industry.

SA Canegrowers said it was committed to preserving and expanding opportunities in the industry for young, black and women growers, among others.

“But to achieve this, we have to overcome the challenges the industry faces and work together with all industry stakeholders to create a policy environment within which new growers can build sustainable livelihoods.

“As we look forward to the imminent State of the Nation Address as well as the budget speech, SA Canegrowers urges President [Cyril] Ramaphosa and Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana to announce critical measures to help us protect the one million livelihoods the industry supports, including the suspension of the Health Promotion Levy,” it said.