I am sure many will agree that this has been an eventful year for the South African sugar industry, particularly from a trade perspective. A few months ago, hardly a week would go by without seeing stories of sugar imports threatening the local industry.

As South Africans navigate a festive season offering the relief of a lower fuel price — while taking a toll in disruption due to load-shedding — it all points to the shameful slow progress the country has made in developing a biofuels industry.

Russia’s difficulty exporting its sugar could slow the expansion of the industry that’s seen a big transformation in the past two decades.

Increasing sugar imports and the so-called sugar tax are significant risks that may impact on the profitability of the agricultural sector in the short to medium term, says Land Bank research analyst Gilberto Blacuana.

He adds, however, that these risks can be mitigated through higher import tariffs and investment in alternative uses of sugarcane, such as ethanol production.

“The global sugar market is distorted by production and export subsidies, which create an oversupply of sugar. Additionally, almost all countries have tariff protection in their domestic sugar industries.”

Blacuana says data from the South African Revenue Serviceshows that sugar imports from India have increased substantially in recent months.

He says the Indian government offers its sugar producers a $150/t rebate or subsidy on sugar exports.

“This unfair practice, or dumping, makes the Indian sugar [industry] competitive in the global market, thus depressing global prices. This unfair practice has prompted Brazil, the world’s largest sugar producer, and Australia, to lodge a formal complaint against India at the World Trade Organisation.”

This is especially relevant since markets compete for share in the massive sugar importer, the US, which increased its sugar imports by 58.3% between the 2015/16 and 2016/17 season, from 470 000 t to 744 000 t.

Moreover, Blacuana says South Africa’s export data shows that sugar exports had increased by 54.5% to 1.2-million tonnes in the 2017/18 season. The proportion of South Africa’s exports to domestic production increased from 13.6% in the 2016/17 season, to 37.3% in the 2017/18 season.

“Should the South African government not take further steps to protect the local market, the domestic market will come under renewed pressure from sugar imports from India. The industry has called for the tariff to be increased from R4 500/t to about R7 000/t.”

Meanwhile, Blacuana says the Health Promotion Levy, or sugar tax as it is better known, which was implemented in April 2018, involved a 5.2% increase in tax on sugar sweetened beverages.

Estimates from the South African Sugar Association indicate that the revenue lost since the implementation of the sugar tax is about R1.3-billion, Blacuana points out.

“While it is difficult to quantify the impact of imports and the sugar tax on employment, the South African Cane Growers Association estimates that the sugar tax is likely to lead to about 10 000 people losing their jobs in the primary level of the sugar value chain; however, this figure does not consider the impact on job losses in the milling and beverage industries. The sugar industry employs about 350 000 people.”

However, the African News Agency earlier this week reported that the National Treasury’s Mpho Legote had stated that any current estimates are guesswork and that the government was undertaking an assessment of the impact of the sugar tax.

The hormonal and bioenergetic circuit are primarily involved with the maintenance of cortisol, thyroid, and insulin levels, and the organs that maintain those hormones, the adrenals, the thyroid, and the pancreas.

DO YOU dunk a rusk in a cup of tea and call it breakfast, or grab a sneaky chocolate during your afternoon slump, or perhaps you add a teaspoon of sugar to your coffee?

DouxMatok, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based food-tech company that says it is able to cut sugar levels in foods without affecting their taste, said on Wednesday it had raised $22 million in a series B funding round.

Nestle has found a way to create chocolate without adding any sugar, relying on leftover material from cocoa plants for sweetening as consumers look for natural and healthier fare.

Sugar in South Africa- 

Be honest – how many drinks containers have you used today? A carton of orange juice at breakfast, a plastic bottle of water for your morning run, a takeaway coffee, maybe a can of soft drink at lunch, a couple of styrofoam cups at the office water cooler, perhaps even a bottle of wine to go with dinner? It all adds up.

Harvesting and transportation accounts for one third of the total production costs of sugar from sugar cane. To be more efficient, Bevap brought artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things into this process. This resulted in 8% increased efficiency representing € 150 million.

Food cravings are strong enough to make you indulge in eating a little more than you should.

In a recently published study on the political activities of the soft drinks industry in the lead up to South Africa introducing a sugar tax, we outlined the complex and systematic way in which big corporations and business associations misrepresented evidence to the country’s National Treasury.

In addition to its plans to exit sugar farming in South Africa, embattled agroprocessing business Tongaat Hulett expects to conclude a transaction to establish a transformative milling, refining and sugar marketing business by the end of this year.

Just as the world’s top sugar traders forecast a global shortage of the commodity, No. 1 raw-sugar importer Indonesia says it wants a record amount of the sweet stuff.

This month, federal authorities finally announced an upcoming ban on mercury-containing pesticide in Australia.

THE trade war between Beijing and Washington has shaken up the world market since it started in 2018. A part of the economic disputes between the world’s two largest economies involve millions of farmers: “Escalation of a trade war between the United States and China can throw a monkey wrench in the gears moving agriculture trade.

Australian startup AutoWeed has received a $ 400,000 AUD grant for the development of a smart weed spraying robot that could reduce herbicide usage on sugarcane farms in Great Barrier Reef catchment areas by at least 80 per cent.

‘We estimate that for every ton of imported sugar that flows into the country, the SA industry loses R4 000.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic recovery strategy hinges partly on the industry-by-industry development of master plans that set out in more granular detail the changes required to reconstruct and repair the many ailing sectors of the SA economy.