Nobody expected farming to be easy. But the men and women who cultivate sugarcane across the rolling hills of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga are now facing a convergence of pressures so severe that the very survival of South Africa’s sugar industry hangs in the balance.
Policymakers in Pretoria would be wise to pay attention and to act before the moment passes.
The Cost Crisis
The war in the Middle East has driven oil prices at times above $108 a barrel , sending the cost of both diesel and fertiliser sharply higher.
Most sugarcane growers are small-scale operators who truck their harvested cane to the nearest mill. Transport costs already consume 14% of input bills for non-irrigated areas and 11% for irrigated regions. Fuel and lubricants add a further 6-15% in costs.
Tongaat Hulett’s Looming Collapse
Tongaat Hulett , the 136-year-old company, is facing potential liquidation. It is:
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South Africa’s only standalone refiner of white sugar
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The milling hub for roughly 18,000 of the country’s 28,000 registered cane growers
Should it collapse, most local growers would have nowhere to sell their sugarcane, and white sugar procurement would shift offshore.
The Social Stakes
Sugarcane farming is a critical stabilising force in some of South Africa’s most economically precarious rural communities. Researchers have concluded that no alternative crop can readily replace sugarcane at scale in these areas. Avocados and macadamias demand capital outlays and lead times that place them beyond the reach of small-scale growers.
The Import Flood
The world sugar price has been falling since 2024 as heavily subsidised imports from India, Brazil and Thailand flood the local market.
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January 2026 alone: 24,600 tons of deep-sea sugar entered South Africa (more than total imports in all of 2022)
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Full 2025/26 season: Almost 200,000 tons of imported refined sugar entered the country
The local industry loses more than R7,000 for every ton of locally produced sugar displaced by importsa combined blow of R1.5 billion in a single season.
The Policy Gap
Import duties exist, but the current tariff is sometimes implemented too many months after the world sugar price drops. The dollar-based reference price that triggers tariff adjustments has remained unchanged since 2018.
There is an opportunity to modernise this benchmark and bring it in line with costs of producing sugar.
The Bottom Line
The sugar industry is at breaking point.
Diesel is up. Fertiliser is up. Imports are flooding in. Tongaat Hulett is teetering.
The tools to protect the industry are at hand. The question is whether there is the will to use them before the damage becomes permanent.
