Big industry and emerging farmers are collaborating to absorb the punishing blow of sugar tax, a health-related tariff measure that has resulted in R1.4 billion in lost revenue since it was mooted and passed in 2017 before being implemented in 2018.
As Tongaat Hulett, South Africa’s leading company operating in the local sugar sector, battles for survival amid the biggest auditing scandal to have hit the agri-processor, local cane growers are pulling out all the stops to remain viable.
According to Siyabonga Madlala, chair of the SA Farmers’ Development Association (Safda), young sugar cane farmers are doing all they can to remain afloat.
One of the measures implemented to assist an industry that employs 75 000 people responsible for an estimated one million dependants, has oddly enough come from the world’s biggest soft drinks manufacturer, Coca Cola.
Madlala said one of the organisations to which Safda refers struggling farmers is the Mintirho Foundation, a funding initiative launched by the Coca Cola Beverages Company SA (CCBSA).
With around R400 million at its disposal, the foundation is making a significant difference in the farming operations of previously disadvantaged cane cultivators struggling to make ends meet in the face of falling sales caused mainly by sugar tax.
Mintirho head Noxolo Kahlana said that apart from providing interest-free loans to emerging cane-croppers, they also provided technical information to prevent farmers from going under.
