Beira, Mozambique, Aug. 9, 2024 (Lusa) - Sugar production at the Mafambisse sugar mill, in Sofala province and one of Mozambique's main sugar mills, is falling due to the combined effects of bad weather and climate change, the management announced.
"We're seeing a drop in our sugar production due to some difficulties caused by the bad weather in recent years in the country," the director of Tongaat Hulett, the group that owns Açucareira de Mafambisse, Pascoal Macule, told reporters on Thursday.
He said that the company's 75,000 tonnes of produced annually had fallen to 40,000 in the last two years, creating heavy losses for the factory.
Another factor influencing the sharp drop in production was the loss of around 8,000 hectares of sugar cane, the raw material for sugar production, due to the effects of climate change: "This in Nhamatanda, due to the drought in our fields and the El Niño phenomenon."
Located in the administrative post of Mafambisse, in Sofala's Dondo district, the sugar mill has the capacity to produce 92,000 tonnes of sugar a year.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.
Sofala province, in the centre of the territory, has been hit hardest by the storms.
In the first quarter of last year, heavy rains and Cyclone Freddy caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people in the country, and destroyed 236,000 homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official government figures.
Tongaat Hulett recently announced an injection of 500 million rand (€25 million) into the Mafambisse and Xinavane sugar mills, both in Mozambique and in which the South African group is the majority shareholder.
The challenges facing the two sugar companies in recent times include countering a continuous decline in sugar sales and obtaining support to prevent low-priced sugar imports from entering the domestic market and affecting domestic production.
According to the director of Tongaat Hulett, the Mafambisse sugar company has adopted several strategies to turn the situation around, including looking for more financial partners to leverage the company.
"We got back on our feet even though we didn't meet expectations. We are currently serving the West African, American, Mauritian and Mozambican markets, and we are thinking of expanding the export market for our product to neighbouring Malawi," concluded Pascoal Macule.
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