As sugarcane producers at the recent Bonsucro Global Week conference committed themselves to working together in the face of the climate crisis, SA Canegrowers delegates gleaned insight on the challenges facing sustainable production and the collaborative action required to find workable solutions.
At the Bonsucro Global Week conference held in Mexico earlier this year, delegates said they were united in their commitment to cutting the environmental impact of growing sugarcane but urged experts and industry leaders to balance sustainability with profit taking.
And while certification of the global crop was central to the agreed goal, challenges included further work on limiting greenhouse gas emissions and lowering the carbon footprint.
It was agreed that the Smallholder Roadmap required further attention but there was support for the development of regional roadmaps in the interim.
However, overall there was a strong sense of collaboration at the meeting to tackle these challenges.
The Central American Sugar Association (AICA) raised concerns on the price of the certified product and the perceived lack of market access. The association, which represents 41 sugar mills of which 13 are Bonsucro certified and 40 000 growers farming 500 000ha under sugarcane, called on Bonsucro to drive the promotion of certified sugarcane through heightened awareness in international markets. There was a call to all stakeholders to raise awareness of certified sugar.
Broad representation
SA Canegrowers’ Technology and Innovations manager, Andy Church and board member, Dave Littley, attended the conference held from the May 20 to 23 in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca.
The conference was described as the biggest and most diverse with 250 delegates from 30 countries representing the sugarcane sector, civil society, certification bodies, training and research bodies.
Littley said the broad representation at the event was a highlight. “We heard from small-scale and commercial growers, the big consumer companies, processors, millers and sugar buyers. I have realised that we can’t operate in silos. What happens globally in the sector has a real and significant impact on our domestic industry,” he said.
Littley said he was more committed than ever to the certification process on his sugarcane crop. “My first step is to adopt SUSFarms – our own sugarcane growing management tool – that will set me on the right track for Bonsucro certification in the future,” he said.
Key themes
Key themes at the conference were, improved communication and transparency through the sugarcane value chain, the acceleration of the climate crisis and finding ways to equalise sustainable and profitable production.
The Mexican Sugar Industry listed their industry’s challenges as the threat of mill closures due to declining production linked to the impact of climate change (current drought), low productivity, input cost increases, social and environmental regulations, labour shortages and the change in behaviour by consumers concerned about the health impact of sugar in their diet.
In an overview of Bonsucro milestone achievements, presenters said while the supply of certified sugarcane still exceeded demand, this was often as a direct result of logistics challenges and sub-standard product quality. “The assumption that certified sugar automatically meets customer quality requirements is often incorrect,” they said.
However, the increased global production of certified sugarcane since 2019 has meant a 41% cut in water used and a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions. Further, and as a key component of the certification requirements, 196 200 workers were now covered by human rights measures and almost 2 000 new small-scale growers were certified under the Bonsucro Smallholder Production Standard.
In terms of climate action, Bonsucro are developing a toolkit aimed at assisting sugarcane growers to set targets and clear pathways to reducing greenhouse gases.. Participants heard how partners – which includes SA Canegrowers – were consolidating the climate action roadmap and developing tools and processes able to drive and measure climate action in the sugarcane and cotton producing regions.
In the workshop, delegates also worked on the Bonsucro ClimateCane Tracker, where live examples were given. It’s designed for companies that want to set science-based FLAG targets specifically for sugarcane production and it and includes the measurement of emissions for land management and land-use changes, as well as emissions from land management (e.g. fertiliser, chemicals etc).
Regenerative sugarcane
Further topics under the spotlight included defining regenerative agriculture in the sugarcane growing sector and how it should be applied.
“Bonsucro members have agreed a united approach is the way to go on what regenerative agriculture should look like when growing cane. This means members can unite behind the development and alignment of industry-wide solutions in the future,” Church said. “For this reason, Bonsucro are collaborating with SAI Platform, so as not to “reinvent the wheel”, as they say”.
Further sessions on the subject were delivered by the Norwegian chemicals company, Yara and Australian sugarcane farmer and regenerative agriculture expert, Robert Quirk.
Quirk who describes himself as a farmer turned accidental scientist told delegates at the Bonsucro conference that the climate crisis required a focused management plan to deal with the risk of the increasingly variable weather patterns.
He said climate change was moving faster than farmers’ ability to adapt and while adjustments were possible, innovation was key if the impact of growing sugarcane on the environment was to become more sustainable.
Supply chain tracking
The integrity of the sugarcane supply chain was discussed at the conference with experts and delegates alike expressing the importance of transparency and accountability, as well as the availability of data.
Church said the panel discussion on this theme was clear on the importance of product tracking to build trust between the industry and consumers.
On what they had gained from the conference, Church said both he and Littley had valuable insight into the views and thoughts of the entire sugar value chain on a possible roadmap to more sustainable production which was vital for the domestic industry. He said they had heard about the challenges and that they were more acutely aware how the South African industry was an integral part of a global movement which required a willingness to unite behind industry-wide solutions and strategies to improve the impact on the environment of sugarcane processing and production.