Cotton farming is an easy diversification for sugar cane growers of South Africa

The South African (SA) Cane Growers Association will present the outcomes of a recently-concluded cotton diversification pilot project to the Sugarcane Value Chain Masterplan Task Team. These findings represent an exciting new avenue for the sugar industry to explore, in pursuit of viable diversification options for cane growers in SA. The successful pilot project follows a new crop diversification report that was commissioned by SA Canegrowers in October 2020. The report identified potentially suitable alternative crops that can be grown by cane growers to help ensure the survival of the sugar industry. Confirming the findings of the report, the project showed that small-scale farmers situated near a cotton gin could benefit from diversifying into irrigated cotton as a breakout crop. Breakout crops are secondary crops grown to interrupt the repeated sowing of cane as part of crop rotation. The project was part of an International Social and Environmental Accreditation and ...