The Sunday News
Gabriel Masvora in Chiredzi
INDIGENOUS sugar cane farmers in the Lowveld are losing about 20 percent of their equipment to commercial crime where cartels are stripping the farmers of key infrastructure in the process hindering production of the sweet grass.
Most of the equipment targeted include water pumps, electric fences and even the crop itself which is sometimes transported by large trucks to major cities such as Harare where it is sold on the open market.
Zimbabwe Sugar Development Association chairman Mr Edmore Veterai told Sunday Farming in Chiredzi that commercial crime was now rampant among sugar cane farmers
“It is now bad,” he said, “Apart from our equipment some which we recently discovered after it was transported by a truck and sold to scrap yard dealers, theft of chewing cane is also on the increase. People come from Harare with trucks to steal cane at night and resell it on the open market. It’s no longer safe to invest in the industry.”
Mr Veterai sad apart from the challenges of theft, sugar farmers were also battling a host of other challenges that need urgent attention to ensure that they remain viable. He said farmers were getting a raw deal from Tongaat Hullets which enjoys monopoly in the sugar milling industry. The only other sugar milling company, Green Fuel in Chisumbanje is specifically in the production of ethanol.
“We are forced to toll mill our cane in the monopolised mills of Tongaat Hulelts. The problem is over the division of proceeds. The miller has imposed a milling charge of 23 percent of our output leaving us with just 77. The farmer also has to pay 15 percent VAT before factoring in the other expenses such as labour and inputs. Ideally, we should be milling our cane at 15 percent including VAT for us to start making profit, 23 percent is killer rate,” he said.
Mr Veterai said the farmers were also facing challenges with water charges. He said in some cases farmers are charged for water they would not have used.
“Zinwa is not billing farmers according to usage but they make farmers to pay for water in advance yet it under-delivers water.
“In most cases they do not even refund the farmers. They must introduce prepaid meters for us,” he said.
He said the sugar cane farmers were also getting a raw deal since they are under the control of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce instead of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Settlement.
“The Sugar Industry is misaligned. We belong to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce yet we are not manufacturers but only farmers. We have approached the Agriculture Marketing Authority to look into our matter.”
On availability of sugar, Mr Veterai said while the market has stabilised there was still a need to address issues that have continued to promote arbitrage in the sector.
“In Zimbabwe we have a situation where sugar has also been used as a store of value. You will be surprised that sugar here is sold at least five times before it reaches the consumers as people play hide and seek selling and reselling then changing money into forex and reselling the US$ into RTGS. The Zimbabwe Sugar Sales only sells in local currency hence the parallel market dealers end up getting as much as $500 from just one two-kilogramme packet of sugar.”
He said local sugar is also the cheapest in the region so some dealers were even smuggling for resell in neighbouring countries. Mr Veterai said it was viable that sugar which is produced from a 12-month cycle crop cost less than other crops that only take weeks to produce.
“Sugar cane takes 12 months to mature. The farmer is paid after 14 months and then we produce a product whose price is lower than that of two kilogrammes of kapenta which can be harvested overnight.”
