SIBUSISO MNGADI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The Eswatini Sugar Association (ESA) has reported record revenue of E7.71 billion for the year to 31 March 2025, up from E7.42 billion, and lifted the proceeds distributed to millers and growers by E735 million. But beneath the headline numbers, the industry’s integrated annual report paints a far more strained picture: a multi-year decline in cane and sucrose yields that management now calls its “most pressing challenge,” and a liquidity squeeze that pushed the bank overdraft up by nearly E700 million.
For a sector that contributes 6.3% of gross domestic product and remains the country’s largest private-sector employer, the report reads less as a victory lap than as a warning about the structural pressures building beneath a still-thriving industry.
Revenue up, but funded on borrowed money
Group revenue rose 3.8% to E7.71 billion, driven mainly by higher sales volumes. Yet the cost of financing that year told its own story. The season opened “on a backfoot,” with stocks unexpectedly depleted before the 2024/25 crop came in, after the industry missed its production targets in 2023/24. Unable to meet all contractual obligations early on, ESA lost some customers to alternative suppliers, while others locked in cheaper prices elsewhere and have yet to lift sugar that is now available.
The result was a build-up of unsold stock. Inventories more than doubled, from E473.37 million to E1.15 billion, as sales were deferred amid unfavourable prices and regional consignments that fell short of quality standards. To bridge the gap, ESA leaned heavily on short-term funding. Its bank overdraft climbed by E695.80 million, and interest paid jumped from E228.85 million to E298.95 million — a roughly 30% increase that erodes the very proceeds the industry exists to distribute.
Because ESA passes profits in full to millers and growers as part of its cost of sales, the Association itself records no bottom-line profit. That makes the cost of carrying stock and servicing debt the real measure of financial health — and on that measure, the year was expensive.
Yields: a slow decline that has now accelerated
Production volumes actually improved year-on-year. Sugar output rose to 640,738 tonnes from 590,367 tonnes, cane crushed reached 5.36 million tonnes, and sucrose per hectare edged up to 12.67 tonnes from 11.90. But management is clear that this masks a longer downward trend. Sucrose yield per hectare has slipped from 15.17 tonnes in 2018, and the 2024/25 season still “fell significantly short of target.”
CEO Banele Nyamane does not soften the assessment. Diminishing yields, he writes, mean lower production, income and profitability, and carry the risk that growers abandon cane for alternative crops — a shift that would hollow out milling capacity and the industry’s competitiveness in both domestic and export markets.
A Yield Decline Indaba convened on 30 August identified six drivers of the downturn: poor crop management practices, unfavourable climatic conditions, deteriorating soil health, pests and disease such as the yellow sugarcane aphid, season length, and variety disposition. Remedial actions — from climate-resilient cane varieties and integrated pest management to a permanent cutting window and revised fertiliser practices — are earmarked for roll-out in the 2025/26 season, with implementation folded into farm managers’ key performance areas from April 2025.
The candour is warranted. If the industry cannot arrest the yield slide, no amount of marketing agility will compensate for cane that is not in the ground.
Trade winds turning against Eswatini
On the demand side, the report flags a market environment growing more hostile. The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) remains the anchor, absorbing 73% of sales, but ESA warns that a low import tariff or a stronger rand could destabilise returns in its most important market.
Beyond SACU, the risks multiply. US trade tariffs announced under President Donald Trump are expected to contract a market that currently delivers premium prices, EU policy shifts are fuelling volatility, and civil unrest in Mozambique disrupted shipments through the port of Maputo, forcing costly re-routing through Durban. In response, ESA is diversifying — deepening trade with Rwanda, Kenya and the DRC, running trial deliveries to Angola, and exploring Lebanon and Taiwan.
Sustainability and certification: the clearer wins
The report’s more unambiguous progress lies in sustainability. ESA secured certification under the Bonsucro Chain of Custody Standard, strengthening its position with quality-conscious global buyers, while Fairtrade sales reached a record 42,710 tonnes, generating USD 2.6 million in premiums for certified growers. Work is under way to extend certification to more growers and outgrowers.
The Association also invested E1.12 million across four community initiatives, including E400,000 in flood relief that reached 600 families after torrential rains early in 2025.
New hands on the wheel
The financial year closed under substantially renewed leadership. Meshack Kunene, former managing director of the Eswatini Electricity Company, was appointed independent Chairman in September 2024, alongside a new President, Nick Jackson — managing director of the Royal Eswatini Sugar Corporation — and Vice President Stuart Geldenhuys of Tambuti Estates. The year also saw the retirement of Sipho Dlamini after 27 years as Head of Cane Testing and Quality, with Mandisa Maphalala stepping into the role.
The bottom line
Eswatini Sugar heads into 2025/26 in a position that is at once resilient and exposed. It has certification, diversified market access, a new bagging plant commissioning at Mhlume, and a clear-eyed diagnosis of its yield problem. What it does not yet have is proof that the interventions will reverse a five-year decline, or insulation from tariff shocks in the US, the EU and SACU.
The E7.71 billion top line is real. So too is the E1.15 billion of stock the industry could not sell on time, and the debt it took on to hold it. For an industry that sustains 16,000 livelihoods, the coming season is less about growth than about proving it can turn a good year on paper into a durable one on the ground.
This analysis is based on the Eswatini Sugar Association Integrated Annual Report 2024/25, approved by Council on 3 July 2025.
