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Agriculture
der prices offered are normally competitive and are
often below local market prices.
ZAMBIA SUGAR
Steve Langton
Managing Director
PO Box 670240
Nakambala Sugar Estate, Mazabuka
Tel: +260-213-231101 / 230983
Fax: +260-213-231112
SLangton@zamsugar.zm
Zambia Sugar is located in the Mazabuka area on
the Kafue Flats. These agriculture fields are busi-
ness investments split among the commercial farm-
ers that make up the Mazabuka farming belt today.
Zambia Sugar is a public listed company on the
Lusaka stock exchange. Zambia Sugar’s holding
company, Illovo Sugar Limited, is a leading, global,
low-cost sugar producer and a significant manufac-
turer of high-value downstream products. The group
is Africa’s biggest sugar producer and has extensive
agricultural and manufacturing operations in six Afri-
can countries.
Zambia Sugar PLC operates a sugar mill and the
largest sugar estate in Zambia. The company culti-
vates sugar cane on some 11,000 hectares of land,
from which they have the capacity to produce about
450,000 tonnes of sugar annually. Approximately
41% of Zambia Sugar’s total production is sold do-
mestically, with the remainder is sold to the EU and
other regional markets
Zambia Sugar is the country’s leading sugar pro-
ducer, with a 94% share of industry production. In
August 2009, the company completed a success-
ful rights issue that raised US$50 million. During
the process, the Illovo group partially renounced
its rights and consequently reduced its interest in
Zambia Sugar from 89.7% to 81.6%, thereby ena-
bling increased public ownership in the company.
This reduction is supportive of government policy
to increase local participation in business. The pro-
ceeds were used to reduce borrowings related to the
recent major expansion project and the acquisition
of Nanga Farms. Zambia Sugar is the single largest
private agricultural and milling company and largest
employer in the region. The Zambian operation cur-
rently employs slightly less than 2,000 permanent
employees and just over 4,000 seasonal workers at
peak periods and in 2009/10 contributed 18% of the
total Illovo Group’s operating profit.
The sugar estates and mills rely on water from the
neighbouring Kafue Flats. The farmers realize that
maintaining the fresh water resource is not only of
vital importance to them, but also to others in the
region like fishermen, city dwellers in Lusaka, and
the hydro power plant at the Kafue Gorge. Zambia
Sugar’s agriculture estate is almost exclusively reli-
ant on the Kafue Flats wetland water resource for
irrigation. The Company has built canals that run
from pump stations on the riverbanks to the sugar
estates where the channelled water is released to
the farms by way of furrow (surface) irrigation. For
Zambia Sugar, water from the Kafue Flats wetland
system is critical.
Zambia Sugar is one of the commercial farms rep-
resented in the partnership with WWF and the local
community to establish Mwanachingwala Conser-
vation Area (MCA). The company has contributed
3,000 hectares to the conservation authority. Zam-
bia Sugar has also contributed to the development
of infrastructure in the MCA with labour, equipment,
logistic support, materials and fuel.
The company has been involved in the reintroduc-
tion of game and has Zambia Sugar contributed
US$10,000 worth of work towards such an initiative.
The company has also demonstrated its commit-
ment to the local community by grading community
roads. In order to reduce water consumption and im-
prove water quality throughout Zambia’s waterways,
in addition to actively implementing a discharge wa-
ter recycling system at its plantation.
Zambia Sugar