The world's top ten crops - barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soya bean, sugarcane and wheat - supply a combined 83% of all calories produced on cropland.

The South African sugar industry is in a deep crisis, according to the BFAP Baseline Agricultural Outlook for the period 2019 to 2028.

The Seafield Farm in the Midlands South region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa has completed a successful trial of crop-spraying drones over selected sections of its sugarcane farm, offering a new lease of life to the country’s flagging sugarcane industry.

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

In some parts of South Africa’s Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, sugarcane fields stretch as far as the eye can see.