[South Africa] Sugar beet could be commercial antidote to desperate poverty

from The Herald

Business Correspondent

THE fledgling sugar beet industry in the Eastern Cape has moved up a gear with the first commercial plantings of the crop south of the Sahara.

Tests undertaken by international sugar consultants have shown that beet grown in the Great Fish River Valley near Cradock produces the highest yield per hectare in the world.

Plantings on a commercial scale have now started on 200ha of land scattered in pockets throughout the 250km length of the valley and at the Bilatye Irrigation Scheme. The plantings will prove whether or not sugar beet farming is commercially viable as a rotational crop.

The sugar beet project is backed by the Eastern Cape government, which owns 74% of Sugar Beet SA, the company set up to manage the project.

If the plantings are successful, the sugar beet industry could contribute significantly to the success of emerging farmers and the economic upliftment of an impoverished region of the Eastern Cape.

Sugar Beet SA has also been appointed as the Eastern Cape government agent for the production of bio-fuels from beet. Ethanol production is seen as being more viable than the production of sugar.

Volunteer farmers were selected according to geographic area, climate and the type of irrigation used. Roak Crew, MD of Sugar Beet SA, said: “We are paying the farmers to compensate them for what they would have made with another crop.”