Sugar from the desert – with KWS beet

What were the main reasons for launching the Canal Sugar project?

Egypt is currently reliant on sugar imports: We import over a million tons of raw sugar a year, mainly from Brazil. Egypt has a population of 100 million that is growing by two percent per annum. It therefore makes sense to reduce this sugar deficit, in what is also a growing market, with locally produced sugar.

Why is Egypt focusing on sugarbeet?

Sugarbeet has been grown in Egypt since the late 1970s, with continuous increases in yields and sugar content. The introduction of monogerm varieties from companies like KWS barely ten years ago aroused a lot of attention. Monogerm varieties have proven their worth, especially in desert regions with sandy soils, large areas, and modern cultivation methods and irrigation systems. Egypt has scarce water resources, and sugarbeet needs far less water than sugar cane to produce one kilogram of dry mass. In Egypt, a field is normally planted twice a year: with a winter and a summer crop. Whereas sugar cane grows on an area over a whole year, sugarbeet needs six to seven months in the winter half-year. A summer crop can then be planted on the area.

What are the greatest challenges in cultivating sugarbeet?

Sugarbeet is traditionally grown in the Nile Valley on many thousands of very small farms, and the methods used are out-of-date: Multigerm varieties, which require a lot of manual work, are predominantly grown and are watered by means of furrow irrigation. In order to utilize the plant’s capacity to the full, we have to transform large areas in the desert to agricultural land using heavy equipment and at great cost and effort. We intend to use modern monogerm varieties and cultivation methods there in order to increase sugar yields. Initial results are very promising.

Who are the shareholders in the project?

Investors from the United Arab Emirates hold a 70 percent stake in Canal Sugar, while Egypt’s Al Ahly Capital Holding has a 30 percent interest.

What is the scale of the project?

The project has around 76,000 hectares of land, so we can establish a two-year crop rotation of sugarbeet. Over 50,000 hectares of sugarbeet will be watered by means of center-pivot irrigation. 25,000 hectares of that land has already been prepared for cultivation. We will grow 5,000 hectares on our own land this season. At full capacity, the sugar factory will process around 5.4 million tons of sugarbeet 150 days a year. Beginning in April 2021, the factory will have two extraction towers, each capable of processing 18,000 tons of sugarbeet a day. Trucks can be unloaded at 16 hydraulic systems. The plant covers an area of two square kilometers. We also have the world’s largest sugar silo, with a total storage capacity of 417,000 tons. It is shaped like a cone, the tip of which is located 65 meters below ground. The silo protrudes 40 meters above the surface and has a diameter of 124 meters.

Please give us an outlook for the coming years.

We are planning a third line once we have secured a sustained supply of beet for our processing capacities. The beets come from our own fields, and we have already signed contracts with 10,000 farmers and are planning to conclude contracts with a total of 50,000 to 60,000 farmers. Yields must increase further, which is why we are counting on KWS varieties. We want to give our beet farmers access to monogerm varieties and share best practices and know-how in the field of sugarbeet cultivation with them. That will strengthen the position of sugarbeet and profitability, specifically on smallholdings. We also want to help farmers find the right machinery for their small fields. Sugarbeet is not only highly important for us as a sugar producer, but is also a good opportunity for large and small investors wishing to turn desert terrain into arable land.

On the subject of capacity development: What are the expectations of a project in regard to optimizing sugarbeet cultivation by a large number of smallholders?

Our dream is to persuade smallholders to join together and form cooperatives. We are talking here of farms with a size of 0.5 to 5 hectares. From the logistics perspective, it is virtually impossible for us to have direct contact with every single one of them. If they establish cooperatives, they will have far better access to know-how and resources so as to be able to decide themselves which varieties they want to grow and which fertilizers and pesticides they wish to use.

How did you discover KWS?

We were supported by Südzucker when we launched our project in 2012. We visited a farm 150 kilometers northeast of Cairo together and the sugarbeet there looked fantastic. We were told they were a monogerm variety from KWS. KWS is unsurpassed when it comes to sugarbeet. Even though we were approached by other seed breeders, one aspect that swayed our decision is the longstanding partnership between KWS and Fine Seeds in Egypt. Fine Seeds and KWS offer technical support and inform us in detail about the varieties’ yield results. That gives us the assurance that KWS varieties will grow well in Egypt. We trust each other and we are on the same wavelength.