Across South Africa’s sugarcane belt, small-scale farmers are working to build a more sustainable and inclusive future for one of the country’s most important agricultural sectors.
In Jozini, KwaZulu-Natal, farmers, technical experts, UN agencies, and industry partners recently came together for a two-day workshop convened by the United Nations in South Africa, with technical leadership from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and support from the Joint SDG Fund. The discussions focused on how the sugarcane sector can adapt to growing economic and climate pressures while ensuring that small-scale farmers are not left behind.
The initiative is part of broader efforts by the United Nations in South Africa to support a just energy transition that is not only environmentally sustainable, but also inclusive and equitable. In a country where many rural communities continue to face energy insecurity, unemployment, and climate vulnerability, the transition to low-carbon development is increasingly being linked to livelihoods, local economic development, and access to opportunity.
The workshop comes at a critical moment for South Africa’s sugar industry. Small-scale sugarcane growers have declined significantly over the past two decades, falling from around 50,000 farmers to approximately 25,000 due to rising production costs, structural inequalities, and limited access to markets and finance.
At the same time, the sector faces mounting pressure to reduce emissions, diversify production, and adapt to climate change. Longstanding practices such as burning sugarcane leaves before harvest continue to generate significant carbon emissions while wasting biomass that could otherwise be converted into renewable energy.
Participants at the workshop explored how this challenge could become an opportunity.
Together, they co-developed a roadmap to advance regenerative agriculture, expand access to climate-smart technologies, integrate clean energy solutions, and explore innovative financing mechanisms such as green finance and carbon credits. The roadmap aligns with the South African Sugarcane Industry Master Plan and aims to help reposition the industry as more diversified, competitive, and sustainable.
One of the workshop’s key outcomes was agreement on a pilot decentralized processing initiative that would convert sugarcane waste into products such as electricity, bio-oil, and ethanol while reducing emissions. The initiative is expected to serve as a scalable model that could be replicated across KwaZulu-Natal and beyond.
For farmers like Mazwi Simelane of Makhatini Sugarcane, the transition represents both a challenge and an opportunity.
“We acknowledge that the way the industry has been needs to reform and be inclusive of us sugarcane farmers on the ground,” he said.
“This masterplan gives us hope because there are so many other products that sugarcane can produce, but we need support from larger organisations.”
South Africa’s sugarcane industry has significant untapped potential to contribute to a low-carbon economy. Studies highlighted during the workshop show that sugarcane waste can be transformed into renewable energy through technologies such as gasification and anaerobic digestion. Beyond reducing emissions, these solutions could create additional income streams for farmers, stimulate local economies, and improve energy access in underserved communities.
Yet for many smallholder farmers, these opportunities remain out of reach because of limited access to finance, infrastructure, and technical support.
Through support from the Joint SDG Fund, the initiative is helping convene government, industry, financial institutions, technical experts, and farming communities to identify scalable solutions that can reduce emissions while expanding economic opportunities for smallholder farmers. The approach reflects a broader UN effort in South Africa to ensure that vulnerable groups, including rural communities, women, youth, and small-scale producers, are able to participate in and benefit from the country’s green transition.
Ricardo Gottschalk from the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office in South Africa explained that the initiative seeks to ensure that vulnerable and marginalized groups, including smallholder farmers, women, and youth, can actively benefit from the country’s low-carbon transition.
The initiative also aims to engage financial regulators and banking institutions to address long-standing financing barriers facing small-scale farmers.
For many participants, the discussions reflected a broader shift in how climate action and rural development are being approached. Rather than treating sustainability and economic inclusion as separate goals, the workshop highlighted how they can reinforce one another through coordinated investment, innovation, and partnerships.
Nokwazi Moyo, a sustainable development expert at UNIDO, noted that one outcome of the workshop will be the development of a scoping document to help mobilize resources for pilot projects in both Jozini and Nkomati, Mpumalanga.
For Simelane and many other farmers, the stakes are deeply personal.
“Climate change has affected us because the sun gets too hot, Eskom costs have become so high, we are not making profits like we used to,” he said. “When we burn waste and generate electricity from it, this would reduce costs.”
He believes that with the right support, small-scale farmers can play a leading role in building a greener and more resilient agricultural future.
“The interventions would empower us economically to provide for our families and create better education opportunities for our children,” he said. “Without money, we cannot do anything.”
Originally published by Mail & Guardian.
Note:
All joint programmes of the Joint SDG Fund are led by UN Resident Coordinators and implemented by the agencies, funds, and programmes of the United Nations development system. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
