2026 milling season opens with new digital cane system

Zimbabwe's 2026 sugar milling season is underway, with more than 3.7 million tonnes of sugarcane expected to be processed in the Lowveld and sugar production projected to reach 450,000 tonnes. Crushing at both the Hippo Valley and Triangle mills is running around the clock as harvesting gathers pace.

A new approach to cane logistics

• A newly introduced Cane Logistics and Orchestration Platform (CLOP), also known as the Cane Planning System, aims to resolve long-standing logistical bottlenecks.
• The platform is a digital scheduling and site control system that coordinates cane harvesting and delivery timing with actual mill capacity.
• By linking harvesting schedules directly to milling capacity, it is designed to reduce congestion and cane delivery delays that have affected previous seasons.

Tension over cane prices

• The season has been overshadowed by a dispute between Tongaat Hulett and outgrower farmers from Hippo Valley, Triangle, and Mkwasine.
• At the centre is a provisional cane price of US$61.83 per tonne for the 2026 season, down from US$71 the previous year, even as farmers face rising costs for fuel, fertiliser, and labour.
• Tongaat Hulett proposed a temporary arrangement, purchasing cane at the provisional rate while price discussions continue, with any final government-set price applied retrospectively.
• Growers say the arrangement offers limited relief given their reliance on the company's milling facilities, reflecting a long-standing structural tension in an industry where one company controls processing and market access.

Read more

Read about outgrowers and farming on the sugarcane growing page, follow the milling process on how sugar is made, check the figures on the production statistics page, or return to the Industry News index.