ISO Sponsored Sugar Development Projects

Summary As at 14 February 2001

Completed Project

Promoting Alcohol Fuel Programmes

Objective: to expand the end-uses of sugar cane by promoting the production and use of cane-based alcohol as fuel additives to reduce air pollution caused by vehicle emissions; and to promote the adoption of technologies in various countries.

Project completed July 1999. A project report has been prepared and was presented at a very well attended and professionally executed seminar held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The project report is available to all ISO members.

Projects under implementation

The ISO presently supervises three Sugar Development projects which have been awarded funding from the Common Fund for Commodities.

The Projects are:

Waste Treatment at Alcohol Factories

The objective of this project is to reduce the polluting effects of the alcohol distillery, sugar factory and yeast plant at the Heroberto Duquesne Agro-industry complex in Cuba, by constructing a waste processing plant to produce bio-gas and bio-fertiliser.

• Construction of the facility is nearing completion.

Demonstrating Increased Resource Use Efficiency in the Sugar Industry of Southern Africa through Environmentally Sustainable Energy Production (or Co-cropping Sweet Sorghum with Sugar Cane)

This project is sited in Zimbabwe and started in July 1997. Its objective is to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of using fallow sugarcane land to produce sweet sorghum to be converted into sugar, ethanol and electricity at an existing sugar mill/distillery in Zimbabwe.

Large scale agronomic, crushing and conversion trials have been undertaken and the results are presently being collated and analysed, with a dissemination workshop planned for March 2002.

• PEA - Scientific & Industrial Research & Development Centre (SIRDC).

• Total project cost - US$735,464 of which CFC provided a grant of $628,344

Sugarcane Variety Improvement in South East Asia and the Pacific for Enhanced and Sustainable Productivity

The project is centred in the Philippines and to increase and stabilise the productivity of sugarcane in the region through a concerted regional effort on genetic enhancement, variety improvement, dissemination and exchange of improved sugarcane varieties and other genetic materials.

There are three major components of the project.

1. Sugarcane Variety Exchange
2. Sugarcane breeding and trial evaluation
3. Training

Project collaborators: Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh.

Project cost is US$2.2 million of which CFC provided grant financing of US$1.42million.

PEA - Philippine Sugar Research Institute Roundation, Inc. ( PHILSURIN)

The project will be implemented over a 5-year period and commenced in late 2000.

Fast Track Projects

Three fast track projects have been undertaken (projects with a total budget less than US$20,000).

Small Scale Sugar Farming in Swaziland

This Project, undertaken by a consultant to UNCTAD, aimed at identifying constraints to the expansion of production by small-scale sugar farmers and to propose measures to eliminate or reduce these constraints.

Feasibility Study on Sugar Factories Surplus Bagasse Utilization for Cogeneration Process for Sugar Industries in Eastern Africa

This consultancy study collated information about the electricity sector and sugar milling sectors in a first step to investigating the viability of using bagasse for electricity co-generation at sugar mills in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Symposium on Challenges and Opportunities for Organic Sugar

With CFC funding, the ISO organized a symposium entitled "Challenges and Opportunities for Organic Sugar", held in Guatemala City, Friday 18th August, 2000 . It was the first major regional event on the issue of organic sugar and provided a unique opportunity for both the private sector and governments to examine the potential for expansion of the organic sugar market. Around 100 participants attended the symposium from 18 countries in Central America and the Caribbean.

A proceedings volume, has been prepared and contains a summary of the discussion at the Symposium, as well as copies of the papers delivered by the panel of experts.