Jan–Jun sugar imports rose from 1,619 t in 2022 to 124,594 t in 2026. DBRP moved only to $785. The 2007 biofuels strategy still has no commercial fuel ethanol.
Duty-paid sugar imports for January–June rose from 1,619 tonnes in 2022 to 124,594 tonnes in 2026 — more than seventy-fold in four years. Bloomberg’s Cele and Prinsloo (also on Fullview) put that next to Tongaat Hulett’s IDC lifeline through end-September, mill closures from Darnall to Glendale, and an industry that still supports about 270,000 direct and indirect jobs. Local sales are down roughly a third over three seasons; growers’ proceeds are down about R1.3 billion.
August’s DBRP hike — $680 to $785 a tonne, against the industry’s ask of $905 — is real relief and not enough on its own. Food For Mzansi has SA Canegrowers and Illovo saying the same: without a more responsive tariff mechanism and short-term safeguards, the import pad will keep undercutting the domestic price. Brazil, India and Thailand ship sugar from systems that already run ethanol and subsidies; South Africa’s 2007 biofuels industrial strategy announced blending targets and never implemented them. A new plan was signed in April. Commercial fuel-grade cane ethanol still does not exist. Bagasse cogeneration is estimated at about 700 MW if the grid and offtake rules allow it.
That is the live debate under Anti-Dumping and Import Surveillance Modernisation: ITAC capacity, faster injury determination, and surveillance that does not lag the import spike by a season. The failure is not that sugar exists or that Brazil competes. It is that the tariff tool moves slowly, the ethanol demand channel was announced and left idle, and rescue finance arrives after mills have already closed. For the agricultural dualism and rural livelihoods frame, see the textbook’s Chapter 4; for industrial-policy follow-through, Chapter 3.