Sugar imports in the first five months of 2026 are nearly double what they were in the same period last year, according to SA Canegrowers on Monday..
Image: Simphiwe Mbokazi/Independent Newspapers
South Africa's sugar industry has warned that surging imports are displacing locally produced sugar from supermarket shelves and threatening the livelihoods of more than one million people, prompting renewed calls for the government to urgently revise the country's sugar tariff framework.
New figures released by SA Canegrowers show that sugar imports almost doubled during the first five months of 2026, intensifying pressure on local growers and millers already grappling with falling domestic sales and weaker prices.
According to South African Revenue Service (Sars) data, South Africa imported 94,984 tons of sugar between January and May this year, compared with 55,213 tons over the same period in 2025. The increase follows an already sharp rise in imports last year and marks a dramatic jump from just 1,491 tons imported during the first five months of 2022.
The industry body said the surge highlights how South Africa's current tariff protection has failed to keep pace with developments in global sugar markets.
SA Canegrowers is now urging Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Parks Tau to expedite the review of the country's sugar tariff mechanism, arguing that delays are exposing domestic producers to unfair competition from heavily subsidised international suppliers.
The International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) has been reviewing whether South Africa's sugar tariffs remain appropriate following an application lodged by the industry more than 18 months ago.
The impact on the domestic market has already become evident.
Figures compiled by the South African Sugar Association show local sugar sales totalled 255,015 tons between April and June this year, representing a decline of more than 45,000 tons compared with the same period in 2025.
The decline is even more pronounced when compared with earlier years. Before the tariff framework weakened, domestic sugar sales for the same three-month period reached 428,422 tonnes, meaning nearly 175,000 tons of local market sales have been lost within a few seasons.
SA Canegrowers chairperson Higgins Mdluli described the situation as a crisis for one of South Africa's most important agricultural industries.
“Every ton of locally produced sugar displaced by an import is a direct hit to a grower’s income, a mill’s viability, and a rural community’s stability,” Mdluli said. “The scale of what we are seeing now is nothing short of a crisis.”
The sugar industry lobby group said that the imports flooding South Africa’s market originate predominantly from countries like Brazil, India, and Thailand, where growers benefit from generous State subsidies and integrated ethanol regimes that effectively allow surplus sugar to be offloaded onto global markets at prices below what it costs South African growers to produce sugar.
It said this was not simply an industry problem: every imported bag of sugar that replaces locally produced sugar puts South African jobs, family incomes, and the survival of rural communities at greater risk, without making groceries cheaper for consumers.
SA Canegrowers said that import agents purchase this cheap sugar abroad and sell it locally at prices comparable to domestically produced sugar, pocketing the margin while South African growers, mill workers, and the rural economies of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga suffer the consequences of lower domestically produced sugar sales.
Under South Africa’s sugar industry agreement, sugar that is left unsold in South Africa must be exported. South African sugar sales in the already distorted global sugar market lead to further losses.
SA Canegrowers said this is further eroding the local industry’s ability to recoup value from crushed and milled sugarcane – contributing to a projected price per ton that is more than 10% lower than last year at roughly R6,600 per ton as of July this year.
Mdluli said that every week of delay in adjusting the dollar-based reference price costs the industry hundreds of millions of rands in displaced sales.
“We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the existing tariff mechanism to be implemented correctly to reflect a level playing field,” Mdluli said.
He added that South Africa’s sugar industry supports more than one million livelihoods, most of them in rural KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, where sugarcane farming is often the only source of stable income and economic activity for entire communities.
“Allowing it to be hollowed out by unfair imports, for want of an administrative tariff adjustment, would be unconscionable.”
BUSINESS REPORT