Support local sugar: SA Canegrowers makes plea to food, beverage manufacturers and and retailers
SA Canegrowers Association has called on food and beverage manufacturers to prioritise local sugar purchases, following new regulations that enable collective negotiations, ensuring the survival of an industry vital to one million livelihoods.
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The SA Canegrowers Association has called on food and beverage manufacturers and retailers to commit to buying mainly local sugar in order to support the industry.
The association made the plea after it said that Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau had gazetted regulations on Wednesday that will allow retailers, food and beverage manufacturers, millers and growers to collectively negotiate about purchasing mainly local sugar without the talks breaching the Competition Act.
The association, which represents 24,000 small-scale growers and 1,200 large-scale growers, said it wrote to Minister Tau in early August asking him to fast-track the process.
It said Tau first published the draft exemptions in May for public comment and has finalised them this week.
SA Canegrowers chairperson Higgins Mdluli said: “The exemption from competition regulations will allow industry-wide discussions without fear of falling foul of the Competition Act for a period of five years.
“Such discussions include working towards commitments from local commercial users of sugar and retailers to use and stock mainly locally produced sugar,” he said.
The association said exemptions will also allow talks on diversifying the industry into sectors such as sustainable aviation fuels to enable long-term growth.
SA Canegrowers said the exemptions and voluntary commitments to buy sugar will be critical in safeguarding the industry from cheap sugar imports from countries that heavily subsidise their own sugar industries.
It argued that the cheaper sugar flooding into South Africa does not benefit consumers, but allows importers to make higher profit margins.
“The South African sugar industry is a national asset. We support local jobs and farming, yet our market is being flooded by cheap, subsidised imports. This displaces local sugar, jeopardising countless jobs and the stability of the rural economies of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. We call on retailers and commercial users of sugar to buy local,” said Mdluli.
The association added that the new US tariff is also a blow to South African growers, making local sugar less competitive in a crucial export market.
It urged the government to prioritise negotiations with the US to finalise a mutually beneficial trade deal, which would include a tariff exemption for sugar, or a return to the previous US quota mechanism.