INDIA’S DIVERSIFICATION JOURNEY INSPIRES SOUTH AFRICA
Sam Maphumulo
The 96th South African Sugar Technologists’ Association (SASTA) Congress has become a crucial platform for South African sugar industry’s product diversification efforts, with an insightful keynote address by Professor Narendra Mohan, who provided invaluable diversification lessons from India, one of the biggest sugar producers in the world.
From left: Dr Shailesh Joshi, Adv Fay Mukaddam, Dr Sumita Ramgareeb, Prof Narendra Mohan, Dr Thelma John David, Mrs Anita Mohan, Dr Muhammad Kadwa and Dr Sandy Snyman.
In his address at SASTA Congress in August, Professor Mohan emphasised the importance of diversified revenue sources, other than sugar to ensure the long-term sustainability of the sugar industry, and also stressed the critical role their government played through enabling policy and incentives. Prof Mohan is the former Director of India’s National Sugar Institute in Kanpur, India. He has a distinguished career in the sugar industry spanning four decades, including eleven years as director of the institute, where he supervised and coordinated activities related to sugar technology, sugar engineering, alcohol technology, agriculture chemistry, biochemistry and instrumentation engineering. He has played a pivotal role in the diversification efforts of the Indian sugar industry, which now produces bio-chemicals, other bioproducts and bio-energy, in addition to sugar. Furthermore, he has been involved in projects related to bagasse-based co-generation, ethanol blending petrol and compressed biogas production from filter cake. He has formulated different models of sugar-ethanol production to suit relative economics and market demand, and was actively involved in developing technologies for production of graphene oxide, vanillin, surfactants, cosmetic ingredients, biochar and dietary fibre from bagasse. In addition, his passion for sustainability and to preserve natural resources saw many sugar factories moving to zero fresh water consumption. Prof Mohan is also a consultant to the Indian government and contributes significantly to many policy matters including price fixation mechanisms for ethanol made from different feedstocks and the minimum selling price of sugar.
Professor Mohan’s passion for the sugar industry was evident in his address, particularly when he outlined the role the industry plays in a region’s rural industrialisation, nutritional security, on and off farm employment and contribution to green energy, among others. To ensure continued longevity of the industry, however, will require for the sector to reduce revenue generation solely from sugar. The sugarcane industry can be a source of renewable energy, becoming a green energy hub and helping the region’s decarbonisation efforts, and can also produce other valuable products including bioplastics, furniture, construction and building materials and tableware. All these secondary utilisations of by-products and value-added products could improve the economic sustainability of the sector. The sugar industry in India has been successful in several diversification initiatives which includes 5500MW of electricity being exported by sugar factories to the national grid and the successful launch of their National Policy on Biofuels in 2018 with a blending target of 20% for ethanol with petroleum by the year 2030. The success of their bagasse-based power generation has been supported by India’s government, with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy providing capital subsidies to promote the installation of cogeneration plants in the sugar industry. These subsidies have rewarded capital investment of setting up cogeneration plants, making their projects more financially viable for the sector. Soft loans and tariffs for bagasse-based power generation have also helped incentivise exporting power to the grid in the region. Currently, the total ethanol production capacity in India reached over 7900ML/year by March 2024, supported by the development of the region’s biofuel policy. The introduction of India’s differential pricing policy in July 2018 also boosted the region’s sugarcane-based ethanol production where higher rates were offered to sugar mills to produce ethanol from B-heavy molasses, sugarcane juice and damaged food grains. India’s sugar industry is also looking to produce sustainable aviation fuel, through the alcohol-to-jet pathway, as this is a promising opportunity to help reduce the aviation sector’s carbon footprint.
Other opportunities being developed include biogas where India’s Programme on Energy from Urban, Industrial and Agricultural Wastes/Residues is providing financial assistance to set up a waste to energy plant. Refined biogas from press mud could be used as is or can be further processed to produce green hydrogen, a booming source of energy which is expected to grow over the next couple of years. Professor Mohan was very optimistic about the role the sugarcane industry played in the economy and stressed that collaborative efforts with relevant stakeholders such as government were required for innovative product diversification. While quality sugar production remained the main priority, diversification would need to be considered to ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector going forward.
The Independent Chairperson of the South African Sugar Association (SASA), Advocate Fay Mukaddam, assured delegates that no farmer or miller would be left behind in the industry’s product diversification endeavours. SASTA President, Dr Muhammad Kadwa, heaped praise on Prof Mohan for sharing his insight and expertise. “The cyclical nature of sugar economics is something we in South Africa strongly relate to, again showcasing the potential requirements to diversify our revenue streams in future. Sugarcane is a crucial commodity in the Indian agricultural and broader economy, and it is also key in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces. You have presented how valuable and under-appreciated sugarcane is, and there is so much that we still can learn about the crop, especially with technological advancements, to extract enhanced revenue streams, albeit with sugar still being the mainstay of the industry,” said Dr Kadwa.