As SA Canegrowers beds down its buy local campaign and moves into high gear to implement the government’s industry master plan, research indicates the embattled sector is well placed to supply cane for aviation biofuels production in line with international emission regulations.
In a report titled The Viability of South African Sugarcane as Feedstock for Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production, aviation biofuel made from cane is identified as “essential” to the industry’s long-term survival.
The report says South Africa’s sugarcane crop “provides a wholly viable feedstock for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)” with the exception of irrigated sugarcane grown in northern KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
The country’s irrigated cane remains greenhouse gas-intensive due to the coal-based energy mix used to produce the crop. Total irrigated cane represents 25% of the 19 000 000-ton annual domestic harvest.
The research results were released in October last year by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) and SA Canegrowers with the support of Boeing’s Global Engagement Portfolio.
RSB is a global, multi-stakeholder organisation offering an advisory, membership and certification service for the bioeconomy on a global scale.
SA Canegrowers – the member-body for South Africa’s commercial growers and at least half of the industry’s small scale growers – signed up to the RSB early in 2020.
Certification to the RSB Standard will mean the biomass derived from the country’s sugarcane crop and its concomitant supply chain will continuously develop towards a sustainable industry bioeconomy while simultaneously allowing for the identification and mitigation against sustainability risks throughout the harvest’s value chain.
Despite the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on global passenger travel, which is predicted to recover by the very earliest in 2025, experts say the demand for sustainable aviation fuel remains at a premium as the sector looks to low-carbon fuel alternatives to reduce their carbon footprint in line with global emission reduction deadlines.
For example, all European Union countries were required to make sure at least 10% of all their transport fuels came from renewable sources by last year. This share is expected to increase to 32% this year with the imminent publication of the single market’s revised directive or EU RED ii, as well as a new policy – ReFuelEU – to incentivise sustainable aviation fuel scheduled for launch at the end of 2021.
Further, South Africa’s Carbon Tax Bill (2019) requires any airline consuming more than 100 000 litres of fuel annually for domestic aviation to pay carbon tax by 2022 at a rate of R120-a-tonne CO²e emitted, with allowable tax breaks reducing the effective rate to R6 to R48-a-tonne CO²e.
SA Canegrowers’ Chairman Rex Talmage welcomed the findings of the report saying the association was committed to both improved environmental best practice on-farm and aggressively examining all value-add opportunities offered up by the green economy.
He said downstream product diversity as spelled out in the Sugar Industry Master Plan – approved last year – was a top priority to ensure a sustainable industry able to support the thousands of mainly rural people who depended on the crop for their livelihoods.
“The number of sugarcane farmers has declined by 60% since 2000 and sugar industry related work opportunities have dropped by as much as 45% over the same period. Prior to the development of the rescue plan by the South African government in partnership with all our value chain players, the industry was in a vicious downward spiral. We feared the worst as the sector faced collapse,” Talmage said.
In the masterplan the continued decline in global sugar consumption, cheap imports and the approval of the country’s Health Promotion tax on sugary drinks in 2018 are highlighted as key elements adding to the industry’s demise.
“That is why it is so important that we actively and aggressively drive a more globally competitive industry able to supply value-adds beyond refined sugar and molasses,” he said.
And while a more competitive import tax was introduced last year to prevent the continued flood of deep sea imports from countries such as Brazil, Thailand, India and the UAE, Talmage said the continued flow of sugar into the country from neighbouring Eswatini – a member of the Southern African Customs Union and therefore exempted from import tax – had meant the domestic industry remained embattled.
He said the introduction of the tax at over 2 cents-a-gram of sugar in fizzy drinks had cost the sector at least R1.5 billion in bulk sugar sales and resulted in 9 000 people losing their jobs in the cane growing sector alone.
“The key action highlighted in the master plan for this year is to focus on building customer and consumer demand for locally produced sugar and sugar-derived products. As a result, SA Canegrowers launched its Home Sweet Home campaign early in December which is focused on educating and encouraging consumers to support our industry through buying locally grown sugar and related products. We produce some of the best quality sugar in the world,” Talmage said.
He added the active pursuit of aligning the industry with international certification and regulatory standards for the inclusion of sugarcane biomass in the production of aviation bio-fuel was just another proactive move by SA Canegrowers.
Arianna Baldo, who leads RSB’s engagement in the aviation sector, said as the domestic industry was widely supported by the Sustainable Sugarcane Farm Management System (SUSFARMS) – a continuous improvement system developed by the South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI) – production was largely aligned with the RSB Principles and Criteria in promoting sustainability and best management in the local context.
“Greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of sustainable aviation fuel are determined using a lifecycle assessment approach. This approach covers all emission from the cultivation of sugarcane through to combustion of the final product in a jet engine. Rainfed cane presents a particularly strong option for achieving greenhouse gas savings in the production of SAF cutting up to 72% in emissions when the EU RED ii fossil baseline is applied. An additional 2% can be added for green harvesting,” she said.
If irrigated cane was to become eligible for use in in the green jet fuel, Baldo said growers would have to replace their coal-based electricity use with renewable energy resources in order to reach the thresholds mandated under the EU RED and other global airline leaders.
Colleen Dardagan
Sugarcane to ethanol in South Africa – fast facts:
- One ton of sugarcane yields 70 litres of ethanol
- South Africa’s sugarcane growers could supply 10 million tons of biomass into this sector, which represents half of the total cane crop of 20 million tons. 10 million tons of cane can produce in the order of 700 million litres of ethanol per annum.
- Potential demand for ethanol from South Africa’s fuel sector is estimated at 2.4 billion litres-a-year
- Since 2011 250 000 flights have used SAF
- With the right policy support global SAF use is likely to hit 2% of all flights by 2025 up from 0.01% currently.
- Scaling up South Africa’s refineries to produce ethanol will create high skilled jobs, as well as a capital injection into much needed upgrades to factory infrastructure.
- As a well-established industry already contributing significantly to South Africa’s agriculture economy, the use of biomass from the sugar refining process will not require any significant changes to land use or the diversion of agricultural land used to produce food or animal feed.
- The diversion of sugarcane biomass for SAF production will mean the uptake of a product which is currently viewed as a waste by-product of the sugar refining process.
Rex Talmage – Chairman SA Canegrowers
Arianna Baldo, who leads RSB engagement in the aviation sector
Irrigated cane, which represents just 25% of the total crop is not eligible for biofuel conversion.
During a recent media visit to northern KwaZulu-Natal sugarcane growers, government media representative Mndeni Ndwandwe gets a taste of locally grown sugarcane.
Smallscale grower Mbukeni Nyembe, who says the sugar industry masterplan was an essential government intervention to secure the livelihoods of thousands of rural people.
Siyabonga Ngwenya, who manages a 17ha land reform sugar operation in northern KwaZulu-Natal, says the survival of the sugar industry in South Africa is critical for young people such as himself who want to become farmers.
SA Canegrowers-sponsored billboards in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal encourage South Africans to buy locally produced sugar.
South Africa’s sugarcane industry is critical for employment in deep rural areas where work is often difficult to find. In this video community members assist with the application of fertiliser on newly planted seedcane.
