Choosing local sugar is critical to keeping SA’s heritage alive

Despite recent tariff adjustments by ITAC to protect local producers, South Africa’s sugar industry remains under threat from cheap and tariff-free imports. Higgins Mdluli, chairman of SA Canegrowers, highlights how local growers face steady displacement, threatening over one million livelihoods across KZN and Mpumalanga.

In KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, the sugar industry has shaped the very fabric of the provinces, from how towns and cities developed to the communities who have lived there for 150 years.

Sugarcane has been the economic anchor for rural economies from Pongola to Malalane, and from farm to mill to shops, it all starts with our 29 000 small-scale and 1 200 large-scale growers. But for the past two years, our growers’ resilience has been severely tested with imported sugar surging into South Africa.

Last month, the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) raised the Dollar-Based Reference Price for sugar imports from countries such as Brazil and Thailand from $680 to $785 a tonne, which in turn raised the import duty meant to shield local sugar from a global market that is severely distorted by subsidies and incentives in other sugar-producing nations.

This is a very welcome step in the right direction, and we thank ITAC and the department of trade, industry and competition (DTIC) for their action.

A step forward, but import pressures persist

But the tariff increase will not affect all imported sugar flooding into South Africa, and it comes after real economic damage. Sugar grown in the cane fields of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga and processed by local millers has been steadily displaced from retail shelves and from food and beverage manufacturers, forcing local production to be exported onto a distorted global market where subsidised competitors set the price.

The latest available data from the local sugar industry shows a 20% fall in local sales compared with the average of the previous three seasons: from 626 417 tonnes in 2023/24 to 433 380 tonnes this season, despite there being more than enough locally produced sugar to meet domestic demand.

The SACU loophole and displaced sales

The ITAC adjustment, however welcome, also only reaches sugar that crosses South Africa’s external tariff line. Sugar that enters through the Southern African Customs Union, which includes South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Botswana, can take advantage of the free movement of goods between members.

Eswatini is a significant sugar producer in its own right, and sugar it exports and sells into South Africa faces no tariff at all.

Every tonne sourced from outside South Africa’s borders, whether it carries a tariff or not, adds to the same economic pressure on local growers.

Sugar produced in Eswatini and sold into South Africa supports Eswatini’s growers, Eswatini’s mill jobs and Eswatini’s tax base. Every tonne of it that displaces a tonne of South African sugar is a tonne that does not fund the transformation commitments the local industry has made under the Sugarcane Value Chain Master Plan and does not sustain jobs in the cane-growing districts of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.

The master plan, an instrument of the DTIC, is a compact between the government, the sugar industry, labour, retailers and food and beverage producers.

It was designed to bring all industry stakeholders to sit around the same table and work on a roadmap for a sustainable South African sugar industry. As part of the compact, local retailers and food and beverage producers have committed to source 95% of their sugar locally.

That means South African sugar, grown by our growers and processed by local mills. The master plan does not extend to sugar produced by neighbouring countries.

An economic anchor for over one million livelihoods

The reason why the sustainability of the local sugar industry is important is easy to understand.

Sugarcane was first commercially planted along the KwaZulu-Natal coast in the 1850s and has deeply shaped the province. Mpumalanga’s own cane fields, around Malalane and Komati, extended the same crop into a second province in the twentieth century, and with it a second generation of rural communities built around the harvest.

In both provinces, sugarcane has meant more than a commodity for well over a hundred years. It has meant mill towns that exist because of the industry, small-scale growers working on land their grandparents worked, and rural economies that still have few other economic anchors.

In 2026, the country nearly saw what happens if the crisis is left unattended. The potential liquidation of Tongaat Hulett is an illustration of how important the sugar industry is to South Africa.

Without it, huge areas of the country would be economically devastated, with little to no alternative immediate economic activity to turn to. The sugar industry has a long and proud heritage, but can perhaps most proudly point to the fact that it supports over a million livelihoods.

Master plan commitments: Defending SA’s heritage

South Africans can play a direct role in defending this heritage. By buying sugar that clearly states “Produced in South Africa” on the packaging, and avoiding sugar sourced from Brazil or Eswatini, consumer choices keep South Africa’s rural heritage alive.

However, it is retailers and food and beverage manufacturers who shape the future of this heritage more than any other group. Under the master plan, they committed to sourcing 95% of their sugar locally.

Honouring that commitment in full is not a favour to the industry; it is the single largest action that will keep generational farming families on their land in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga and rural towns economically stable. If not, it is a decision to export South African jobs to other countries instead.

Higgins Mdluli is the chairman of SA Canegrowers. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Food For Mzansi.