Online Reporter
Theseus Mauruki Shambare
THE Chisumbanje ethanol plant, operated under Green Fuel Zimbabwe (Private) Limited, a joint venture involving Rating International (Mauritius) and local stakeholders, is now one of the largest biofuel facilities in Southern Africa.
It has an installed capacity estimated at over 150 million litres per year, forming the backbone of Zimbabwe’s fuel blending programme.
But what is emerging is no longer just an industrial success story. It is a contested transformation of land, labour and energy.
In nearby Chinyamukwakwa Village, sugarcane outgrower Ms Ruth Mlambo stands at the edge of her contracted plot, reviewing a new pricing sheet from millers.
For years, her income depended on sugar supply agreements. Now, she has been absorbed into an expanded cane-to-ethanol supply system.
“The money is better some seasons,” she said, “but we are not sure what happens if sugar disappears completely.”
Her concern reflects a growing tension in Zimbabwe’s Lowveld: shifting sugarcane from sugar production to ethanol blending under the national fuel strategy.
Agricultural economist Dr Prosper Zindi said the shift is economically rational, but socially complex.
“Biofuels improve energy security, yes,” he explained.
“But they also restructure land use, pricing systems and farmer bargaining power. Without safeguards, smallholders can be squeezed.”
The concern is not theoretical.
Zimbabwe currently blends ethanol into petrol at ratios ranging from E10 to E20, depending on supply conditions and regulatory adjustments by the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.
But each percentage increase in blending raises a policy question: How much agricultural land should serve fuel rather than food?
Inside the ethanol engine room
At the Chisumbanje processing facility, workers move between fermentation dashboards and control screens, tracking real-time ethanol output.
The plant converts sugarcane molasses and juice into fuel-grade ethanol supplied to national blending depots operated under the National Oil Infrastructure Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC).
Green Fuel general manager Mr Conrad Rautenbach said the Chisumbanje expansion supports national resilience as well as business growth.
“We have been expanding our sugarcane development, and we have been expanding on the factory side, the production side and on the storage side,” he said.
“This year, the plan is to produce 120 million litres of ethanol and now, with our upgraded storage facility, we should be able to have E20 throughout the year instead of dropping to E5.”
The shift aligns with Government targets announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development: increasing national ethanol output from approximately 155 million litres to 600 million litres annually by 2035.
According to official policy briefs, the goal is to reduce fuel import dependency, which consumes a significant portion of Zimbabwe’s foreign currency earnings each year.
But industry insiders admit the expansion is constrained by infrastructure bottlenecks, particularly storage capacity, blending logistics and transport corridor inefficiencies linking the Lowveld to Harare and Bulawayo.
The policy room in Victoria Falls
At a SADC Joint Meeting of Ministers responsible for Agriculture, Food Security, Fisheries and Aquaculture in Victoria Falls, the tone was different — but the urgency was the same.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Agriculture Dr Anxious Masuka positions ethanol as part of a broader structural shift.
“We are deliberately reorienting the sugar industry from food sugar production towards ethanol production,” he said. “This is about cushioning the economy from global fuel shocks.”
He points to global instability, particularly the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Middle East tensions, as drivers of fertiliser and fuel price volatility.
Official data from regional trade briefings show fertiliser prices have increased by up to 300 percent-400 percent over recent years, severely affecting production costs across Southern Africa.
South African Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen confirms the regional pressure.
“Input costs are now one of the biggest threats to food security in the region,” he said. “We must localise production of strategic agricultural inputs, including energy-linked systems like ethanol.”
Despite optimism, structural gaps remain unresolved.
A senior official within Zimbabwe’s agricultural planning structures, who requested anonymity due to ongoing negotiations, highlighted key constraints.
Key challenges include limited rail logistics linking Lowveld production zones to major markets, inadequate ethanol storage capacity at urban depots, inconsistent enforcement of fuel blending regulations across retailers and delayed private sector investment in downstream infrastructure critical for scaling the industry.
“These are not policy problems anymore,” the official said. “They are execution problems.”
Human cost of transition
Back in Chinyamukwakwa, Ms Mlambo walked past an irrigation pipeline trench marking expansion of ethanol-oriented cane production zones.
“If this works,” she said quietly, “my children might not need to leave Zimbabwe.”
But she sounded a warning that echoes across the Lowveld: “We just do not want to become suppliers who cannot decide our own prices.”
The last shift
As evening settles over Chisumbanje, the ethanol plant does not slow down. Steam rises from processing towers. Trucks queue under floodlights and control room screens flicker with output metrics.
Inside the facility, engineers review daily production figures showing stable ethanol output, rising national blending demand and mounting pressure on transport and logistics systems supporting distribution.
Night falls over Zimbabwe’s Lowveld, but the landscape remains in motion, illuminated by industrial lights cutting through cane fields that once existed only as agricultural space.
Now they are something else. They are energy fields.
They are transport corridors. They are trade assets in a regional system being quietly rewired.
