Farmers fear missed milling windows could wipe out months of work.
Nkosinathi Msweli, who grows sugarcane in Kearney, Stanger in the KwaDukuza area of KwaZulu-Natal, said uncertainty about the embattled Tongaat Hulett’s future has already deepened financial strain across the value chain.
“If it gets to a stage where there is a total collapse it will be a disaster for myself, workers, their dependants and the towns, as well as other businesses that are involved in the sugarcane business.
Farmer warns of industry-wide fallout
“The [KZN] economy will also be affected,” Msweli said.
Msweli has been farming since 1996 and his operation spans 123 hectares, with 75 hectares under cane. He employs eight permanent workers and supplements them with seasonal labour during peak periods.
For growers like him, the crisis is about whether cane will be milled in time, whether payments will materialise and whether decades of work can survive a corporate collapse.
He said in January their payments were zero due to a poor RV price, which refers to the sugar content in a stick of cane and determines what farmers are paid.
“It was also about R200 per ton lower as a result of imported sugar coming into our country and displacing the local market,” Msweli said.
The looming provisional liquidation has compounded the pressure. The industry is currently in the off-crop season, a period when cane is not being harvested, making planning even more uncertain.
Milling delays could trigger losses
“There is a lot of uncertainty about the future. The crop has a life span. If it is not milled at a particular time, it will be a big loss to everyone and the whole industry will eventually be affected,” he said.
Growers are also waiting on retention payments due at the end of March. Msweli said he is hoping the funds will be paid as promised.
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Tongaat’s business rescue practitioners have approached the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg for provisional liquidation, arguing that there is no longer a reasonable prospect of rescuing the company after a proposed sale and refinancing deal collapsed.
The company is one of six major milling operators in the country and plays a central role in KwaZulu-Natal’s north coast sugar belt.
Thousands of small-scale and commercial farmers depend on its mills to process cane within strict timeframes to avoid losses in quality and revenue.
For Msweli, the stakes are personal. Nearly three decades after he started farming, he now faces one of the most uncertain seasons of his career.
“If Tongaat is liquidated and things are not stabilised quickly, it will affect my operation badly. It is not just about me; it is about the workers and their families. Sugarcane is the only business we have,” he said.
Union slams potential collapse
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in KZN said this collapse was not merely a corporate failure, but a direct “assault” on workers, their families and the economic stability of KZN.
Provincial secretary Edwin Mkhize said the crisis facing Tongaat Hulett must be understood in its historical and political-economic context.
He argued that like other monopolistic industries such as mining, Tongaat Hulett was part of the conglomerate capitalist system that was built through colonialism and apartheid, driven by land dispossession, cheap labour, exploitation of indigenous communities and systematic underdevelopment of African people.
“The collapse of Tongaat Hulett is therefore not an accident, it is the inevitable crisis of capitalist greed, mismanagement, corporate corruption and reckless accumulation.
“We have always maintained that capitalism, by its very nature, produces crises and ultimately digs its own grave,” Mkhize said.
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