LOGISTICS FOR MEGA SUGAR PRODUCTION IN THE SADC

Sugarcane flourishes against the background of the continent’s rugged beauty in the often isolated SADC sugar producing regions.  Even more eye-opening is the significant level of collaboration on the agricultural estates where with well-resourced irrigation the cane is grown, harvested and milled in quantities of as much as a million tons per season or more.

The favoured status which sugar exports from the poorer SADC countries enjoy is reflecting itself in bigger production goals and sugar export targets.   Higher export goals have not only necessitated putting more uncultivated land into sugarcane production but the streamlining of such important inputs as brush clearing, land preparation, seed cane logistics, as well as harvesting and transport of cane to the mills.  

On sugar estates, expanding and assimilating the expanded production efficiently has proven to be a big challenge, especially when the newly cultivated lands are doubling sugarcane deliveries to the estate mill.  Unitrans Sugar and Agriculture, having supplied a growing basket of logistic and agricultural services in cross-border Africa for about nine years, finds itself in a key position to participate in these ongoing growth initiatives.  

At Mafambisse in Mozambique, Unitrans had for 5 years been providing a range of transport and infield agricultural logistics to the Tongaat-Hulett Sugar managed operation when the expansion at Lamego North and South was planned.   To liberate estate agricultural and management staff for the agronomic management and processing of an anticipated 500 000 tons, a contract was negotiated with Unitrans transferring to them virtually all mechanised activities.  These range from brush clearing, field preparation and ploughing to estate-wide transport of agricultural employees, warehouse logistics and mill yard maintenance in addition to the existing services.   

To make the expanded relationship work, Unitrans purchased from the estate the existing tractors and equipment which was then refurbished and augmented with a new tractor fleet.  A significant percentage of the redundant estate drivers and mechanics was transferred to Unitrans, and the estate automotive workshop was consolidated into the Unitrans maintenance facility.   

Similar expansion initiatives are going on in other SADC countries.  At other estates in Mozambique, where Unitrans has a similar history of service on large estates, there have also been dramatic expansions.  At Xinavane, another Tongaat-Hulett Sugar investment, Unitrans provided land preparation, infield drainage and roads to approximately 3700 hectares in addition to a seed cane supply operation for 7000 hectares.   With new production, Xinavane is expected to crush 1,1 million tons of cane which will be hauled by Unitrans in the 2009 season.


Similar growth initiatives are well on the way on SADC estates where Illovo Sugar is the operating partner.  At Maragra in Mozambique and Nchalo in Malawi, where Unitrans has been providing loading and transport logistics for a number of years, expansion has doubled the cane production on the Maragra estate.  At Nchalo, Unitrans has played a pivotal facilitating role for Illovo Sugar (Malawi) Ltd where the estate, with the expansion crop added in, produced 1,5 millions tons of cane last season and is expected to do at least as well in the current season.  

Unitrans Sugar and Agriculture Managing Director Theunis Nel, who has been active in cross-border Africa for the company since 2001 says, “Our customers, Illovo Sugar and Tongaat-Hulett Sugar, are investing and expanding in Africa and we are well-positioned to support them with increasingly efficient rate structures because of the spreading of overheads at our depots.   At the same time we are continually investigating better ways of providing our services with improved efficiencies and new technology.”

With a history going back more than 35 years as haulier to the KZN sugarcane growers and millers, the company found it necessary to add “and Agriculture” to its name after the turn of the new millennium.  Not only did Unitrans go beyond cane and sugar transport by providing a broad line-up of agricultural services but it has actively pursued logistics partnerships in other crop groups and is now active for Mondi and Sappi with it’s Unitrans-Multidrive haulage solution which, as in sugar, is proving itself as a cost-cutting success in forestry.    
 

A Unitrans-Multidrive with additional payload capacity loads infield on the Tongaat-Hulett Tambankulu Swaziland estate.

GPS technology steers this Unitrans tractor as it ridges a field for sugarcane planting at Kilombero sugar estate in Tanzania where Illovo Sugar is the majority shareholder..

Unitrans bulk sugar tankers are a familiar sight on KZN freeways in and around Durban often transporting raw sugar for milling or export.