SUGAR AND AGRICULTURE
Total Agricultural Solutions
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| Laser levelling in Xinavane, Mozambique, with GPS beacon in the background |
On cross-border African estates we have enjoyed significant success with our total solutions initiatives. On these estates, where we have traditionally provided loading and transport logistics, our customers are increasingly turning a broader range of mechanised services over to us. At Mafambisse, for example, where our corporate customer and the Mozambique government share ownership of a large sugar estate, we are providing virtually every service that ‘operates with a diesel engine’. This allows our customer to focus his energies and resources on his core business…growing and milling sugarcane.
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| Heavy duty earthmoving equipment for drainage construction |
Our expanded relationship has enabled us to play the key role in clearing and preparing land for cultivation at nearby Lamego where cane production from fertile tracts of previously uncultivated land is expected to virtually double the annual output of sugar at the Mafambisse mill from some 55 000 tons to around 100 000 tons.
This is especially significant in Mozambique, one of a number of African countries which now enjoys preferential markets for their sugar in the European Union. Increased land under cultivation and greater sugar production in these poorer regions can be expected to add jobs and support critical social infrastructure. This same total-solutions logistics model is broadening our services base, in varying degrees, across other estates elsewhere in Mozambique as well as in Malawi and Tanzania. The spreading of costs at a single Unitrans on-site depot/workshop complex has resulted in less infrastructural overheads for our customer.
