Agri podcast: Stock theft in the spotlight

Establishing partnerships between government, the private sector and foreign investors is an important step to launching biofuel projects through innovative financing models in South Africa. This was according to Samukelisiwe Maphumulo, a sustainability officer at the South African Sugar Association (SASA). She said the sugar industry had continuously engaged with policymakers to discuss the policy and investment support mechanisms required by the industry to diversify the use of excess sugar produced every year. Around 800 000 ton of excess sugar was currently being exported at a loss. Furthermore, Maphumulo added that South Africa’s policy environment had not been conducive to the development of the biofuels industry, due to delayed policy development, with the National Biofuels Regulatory Framework and Biofuels Feedstock Protocol only gazetted in February 2020.