Africa has huge potential to tap sugar industry

and Egypt have adopted irrigated sugar belt plantation in order to fulfil needs for sugar, sub-Saharan Africa countries mainly rely on rain as well as pockets of irrigated sugarcane plantations.
Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria have also constructed large stand-alone refinery units that process imported raw sugar.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Africa will host half of the world’s top 10 fastest growing economies of 2012.
These booming economies will create domestic demand for sugar and its related products such as ethanol.

However, the industry in Africa is at crossroads even as it faces challenges in its quest to diversify its output that is mainly sugar.
The most common products from the sector include sugar for household consumption, ethanol and bagasse (sugarcane waste) for electricity generation.
Dr Peter Baron, executive director of Inter-governmental agency International Sugar Organisation (ISO), told Xinhua in Nairobi that while sugar production would continue to be the main commercial product from sugarcane in the near term, the crop is increasingly viewed as raw material for fuel, fibre and other specialised products.

“The crop can help African countries, especially the non-oil producing nations, reduce their dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and electricity,” he said on the sidelines of the second Africa Sugar Outlook Conference.
However, for this to occur, the countries must first put in place policy driven initiatives to encourage ethanol production from sugarcane.
As most African countries are net sugar importers, it will be unlikely that in the near future their sugar producing industries will divert from sucrose to ethanol production.

Several studies by the ISO have shown that it is possible to increase the amount of land under sugarcane meant for bio-fuel production without decreasing food production.
Brazil and the US are the major users of ethanol as transportation fuel.

Sugarcane’s high yield per hectare makes it among the best alternatives for bio-fuel feed stocks.
In Africa, only Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have implemented blending mandates for petroleum, while Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Sudan are in the process.
Barron said if African countries approve ethanol blending mandates in petroleum used in the transportation industry of between 10 to 20 percent, it could spur

investment in the region.
“This will provide a ready market for ethanol which will encourage more sugarcane cultivation,” he said.
Experts say that there are many parts of Africa, which have excellent conditions to produce sugarcane that could provide biomass required to produce energy and especially electricity.

Sugarcane bagasse co-generation is also a viable alternative for electricity generation. Mauritius, which has a well-developed sugar industry, generates approximately 60 percent of its electricity from this sugar industry by-product.
Given the continent’s heavy reliance on firewood as the primary source of energy, ethanol can also be developed as a more environmentally friendly alternative.

Lessons from Brazil’s sugar industry can also be adopted to suit the needs of Africa.
Last year, the nation produced 494 million tonnes of sugarcane that is an 11 percent decrease from 2010’s level at 556 million tonnes. This decrease was mainly blamed on frost, which affected crop yields.

“The increasing value of the Brazilian currency against the US dollar has made Brazil an attractive market for many low-cost producers such as Africa,” said Pedro Cortes, president of Energy Brazil.
“We are already importing vast quantities of ethanol from US in order to bridge the country’s deficit,” Cortes said.

The continent should also improve governance in the sugar industry in order to provide comfort to both domestic and foreign investors.
South Africa Sugar Association director of external trade Johan Van Merwe said incentives in his country are still not sufficient to spur investment.
“We have a potential of over 1 600 megawatts from bagasse but only a fraction has been exploited,” he said. — Xinhua.