South Africa's Sugar Harvest May Be Smallest in 15 Years, Growers Say

Sugar production in South Africa, the biggest producer on the continent, may fall to the lowest in 15 years because of a drought this season, Trix Trikam, executive director of the South African Sugar Association, said.

The crop in the season ending March, 2011 is expected to fall to 2.14 million metric tons from 2.18 million tons in the season that ended this year, Trikam, whose organization represents growers and millers, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday. That would be the smallest harvest since the 1.67 million tons reaped in 1995.

“It’s the worst drought in 20 years,” Jayne Ferguson, spokeswoman for the Cane Growers Association of South Africa, said in an interview from the south eastern city of Durban.

Along South Africa’s coast between the southeastern towns of Southbroom and Port Shepstone, at the heart of the country’s sugar-growing belt, rainfall was 20 percent to 25 percent lower than the “long term mean,” according to the Cane Growers Association. Between February and April rainfall in Port Shepstone was 50 percent to 60 percent lower than normal.

South Africa’s biggest sugar producers are Mt. Edgecombe- based Illovo Sugar Ltd., Tongaat-based Tongaat Hulett Ltd., Renishaw-based Crookes Brothers Ltd. and TSB Sugar, a unit of Stellenbosch’s Remgro Ltd.

The sugar industry employs 77,000 people in South Africa, according to South African Sugar’s website. Sixty percent of production is sold within the five-nation Southern African Customs Union while the rest is exported to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the group said. The customs union consists of South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.

White sugar for October delivery rose 1.1 percent to $557.30 a metric ton as of 1:16 p.m. in London.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mkhululi Mancotywa in Johannesburg at mmancotywa1@bloomberg.net.

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