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ABF Sugar’s businesses are working to deploy more sustainable farming practices across their estates, trialling more regenerative agriculture approaches in some of their operations and working to increase resilience among growers in the agricultural supply chain.
Cane fields on the Ubombo sugar estate, Eswatini
ABF Sugar’s businesses are working to deploy more sustainable farming practices across their estates, trialling more regenerative agriculture approaches in some of their operations, and working to ensure growers in their agricultural supply chains have access to the necessary expertise for successful sugar cultivation, with the aim of increasing resilience.
ABF Sugar attributes part of its business success to productive, high-yielding and robust agricultural practices at its African sugar estates and those of its third-party growers. The production of sugar beet and sugar cane faces potential challenges due to changing weather patterns, loss of biodiversity, land degradation and water scarcity. These conditions can lead to more volatile crop yields, further exacerbated by rising pest and plant disease pressures, as well as the reduced availability of active plant protection products due to stricter regulatory controls.
To gain deeper insight, ABF Sugar has partnered with Risilience, a sustainability intelligence company, to comprehensively assess its material nature-related dependencies, impacts, opportunities and risks. The insights gained from this project are informing ABF Sugar businesses’ strategic direction and plans over the next five years, enabling the division to make more informed decisions on future agricultural strategies that integrate both nature dependencies and climate impacts.
In 2025, ABF Sugar businesses faced significant challenges due to extreme weather events, including heatwaves, droughts and floods, which had a substantial impact on their agricultural and farming practices. These experiences have driven the development of innovative approaches that seek to strengthen resilience and create new opportunities for the future.
ABF Sugar is an active member of the Sustainable Agricultural Initiative (SAI), the global food and drink industry platform that aims to develop more sustainable agriculture solutions. It is also a founding member of SAI's Regenerative Agriculture Platform.
Growers for Azucarera in Spain and British Sugar in the UK, as well as its estates in Africa, are using the SAI Platform Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) 3.0 tool to drive continuous improvement on-farm. The tool assesses operations and benchmarks them against standards already being used in the field, such as Red Tractor Crops and Sugar Beet Standards in the UK or the Sustainable Sugarcane Farm Management System (SUSFARMS®) in South Africa.
ABF Sugar has achieved FSA silver level equivalence across all its businesses’ own operations, and also grower operations in Nchalo and Dwangwa in Malawi. Illovo Sugar South Africa has achieved Proterra Certification for selected farms, Sezela Sugar Mill and Sezela downstream products factories. The long-term goal is to expand this programme to include additional cane-growing regions, ensuring that a greater volume of sugar delivered to the mills meets the criteria set by the FSA.
In Spain, Azucarera was awarded FSA silver level equivalence after an audit process that took place in the last months of 2024. This process of assessing, improving and validating on-farm sustainability using SAI’s FSA tools will help to encourage farmers towards more sustainable practices and enable ABF Sugar to measure and demonstrate its collective progress toward its GHG emissions reduction targets.
In Tanzania, Kilombero Sugar introduced the FSA for Harambee AMCOS (Agricultural Micro-Credit Organisations) who supply its factory to evaluate farming practices, identify opportunities for improvement, and develop strategies for a continuous improvement plan. The initiative also aims to strengthen the economic resilience of local farmers.
ABF Sugar businesses co-fund research institutions and partnership organisations with its growers, including:
These engagements aim to enhance crop resilience and productivity while reducing negative environmental impacts. This is achieved by partnering with SASRI in South Africa to trial new sugar cane varieties and working with the BBRO in the UK to test different approaches to monitoring emissions from sugar beet cultivation. The collaboration with AIMCRA and Agroteo in Spain strengthens the links between individual farmers and field technicians to provide better guidance on crop management.
ABF Sugar is also promoting biodiversity and ecosystem health across its operations and supply chains through various initiatives. These include the creation of projects such as beetle banks and refuge areas, the use of cover crops and tree planting at its Nakambala site in Zambia and its sites in Malawi. As of August 2025, just under 6,000 trees have been planted at its Nakambala site, supporting ecosystem and biodiversity restoration. In addition, Illovo Sugar Malawi established protected areas on both the Dwangwa and Nchalo estates, which are home to diverse plant and animal life.
As a member of the Integrated Kilombero Multi-stakeholder Platform, led by the African Wildlife Foundation, Kilombero Sugar supports collaborative efforts in managing the conservation of natural resources including land, forests and water sources across the Kilombero Valley. By engaging in this platform, ABF Sugar aims to help protect critical ecosystems and support long-term water availability for agriculture and communities.
In recent years, the sugar beet industry has been significantly impacted by Virus Yellows disease, which is transmitted by aphids and reduces the yield and sugar content of each plant. Research into integrated pest management and more sustainable solutions for controlling Virus Yellows has become a priority for ABF Sugar’s UK and Spanish businesses.
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In 2025, British Sugar has continued its collaborative work within its Virus Yellows Pathway, alongside NFU Sugar and the BBRO.
Within the Virus Yellows Pathway, work continues on researching innovative grower practices that can affect the aphids’ ability to detect sugar beet crops. This includes exploring the use of natural soil colourings or inter-row crops and grasses to camouflage the sugar beet, as well as using odours like onion, peppermint and garlic to distract the aphids from identifying the crop. In 2025, there are two more partially Virus Yellows-tolerant seed varieties available on the Recommended List that growers can choose to sow.
British Sugar has also invested in a collaborative project with agriculture biotechnology business Tropic and the plant science institute, The John Innes Centre, to explore how gene editing (GE) can be used to specifically target the yellowing viruses. This collaboration makes use of Tropic’s GE induced Gene Silencing (GEiGS®) technology platform to make minimal and precise gene edits in sugar beet enabling the crop to resist infection. The initial stages of the project, including mapping the sugar beet genome sequence, identifying viral target genes, GEiGS® solution design and initial tissue culture experiments have now been completed.
In 2024, the project received a boost with a £660,000 grant from Innovate UK's Farming Futures R&D Fund, jointly awarded to British Sugar, Tropic and The John Innes Centre with support from The British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO). The grant runs until the end of 2028, when British Sugar will continue to fund the project in pursuit of a commercially viable beet seed.
A recent survey conducted by British Sugar revealed that 69% of UK adults support gene editing in farming, with Gen Z showing the highest support at 80%. This technology is seen as a crucial step towards creating stronger, disease-resistant crops, reducing pesticide use and improving yields. The research coincides with the secondary legislation for the Precision Breeding Act passing through the UK Parliament, with a new regulatory framework coming into force in November 2025.
However, the UK sugar beet industry faced challenges when the government refused emergency authorisation for the use of Cruiser SB pesticide in 2025, leaving the industry exposed to Virus Yellows disease. British Sugar, along with NFU Sugar, has requested urgent support from Defra to expedite trials and research within the Virus Yellows Pathway. Despite this setback, British Sugar remains committed to finding more sustainable solutions to protect crops and support British farmers.
In Spain, the Research Association for Sugar Beet Crop Improvement (AIMCRA) has continued to monitor aphid populations on plants and analyse early symptoms, such as yellowing and other potential indicators. As part of its ongoing activities, it has requested exceptional approval for the use of four active ingredients in cultivation for 2025, three insecticides and one fungicide. On a regular basis, the team has continued to test various plant varieties and assess their impact on production, analyse resistance to fungicides, and develop strategies related to beet cultivation.
One of our Azucarera employees examining a sugar beet with a farmer on his farm, Spain
ABF Sugar businesses in Africa are building stronger relationships with the communities surrounding their factories through a mutually beneficial community bean planting programme. This initiative, in place at the Sezela, Glenroy, Esperanza and Isonti farms, allows approximately 150 community members to use the fields between sugar cane harvests to plant their own beans. This provides a food source to help sustain their families and helps them earn an income.
The programme runs when the sugar cane harvest is complete, typically between February and May. Beans are a cover crop that benefit the land by increasing soil organic matter, controlling pests and fixing nitrogen. Sugar cane and soyabeans complement each other in pest control, disrupting pest cycles and reducing overall pest populations by decreasing the concentration of host plants. Intercropping with soyabeans benefits the businesses as the leftover soyabean residue decomposes and acts as a natural fertiliser for the next sugar cane season. It also improves crop development.
Sugar cane growers at Illovo Sugar South Africa's 2024 growers' day in Sezela, South Africa
In collaboration with experts from the University of Cape Town, our sugar businesses in Africa are conducting research on soil biodiversity in order to improve sugar cane yields in their southern African supply chains and establish more sustainable agricultural practices. The project aims to educate local teams and to develop protocols for on-farm teams to monitor soil biodiversity.
Overall, this project will contribute to deepen ABF Sugar’s understanding of the composition and resilience of soil biodiversity in sugar cane cropping systems while providing insights into how to improve soil biological quality. In 2025, the University of Cape Town concluded their second round of baseline tests, collecting over 2,000 samples from sugar cane fields at Nakambala in Zambia, Nchalo in Malawi and Ubombo in Eswatini.
Looking ahead, ABF Sugar’s businesses in Africa plan to adopt the protocols recommended by this research to measure soil health in their fields with the aim of encouraging and accelerating the adoption of these practices across their operations.
Soil samples being collected at the Nakambala estate, Zambia
Working closely with partners, researchers and its own in-house farming operations, British Sugar is exploring and piloting innovative approaches to reduce environmental impact while maintaining crop performance.
One key area of focus is through the work of the British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO), co-funded by British Sugar and NFU Sugar. BBRO is investigating a range of strategies to lower the carbon footprint of sugar beet production, including:
•low-carbon nitrogen fertilisers tailored to the crop’s specific nutritional needs;
•precision fertiliser application using placement and banding techniques to reduce waste and emissions; and
•sustainable soil management practices that minimise compaction, retain organic matter and boost microbial activity, all supporting long-term soil health and productivity.
Alongside research, British Sugar is trialling practical innovations on its own ‘self-grow' farms. A pilot is underway using the ARA Field Sprayer by Ecorobotix, which leverages AI and high-resolution camera technology to identify and treat individual plants with pinpoint accuracy. This Plant-by-Plant™ technology has the potential to cut herbicide use by up to 90%, protecting biodiversity, improving soil quality, reducing impacts on water quality and reducing the risk of pesticide resistance.
In a further step to support on-farm biodiversity, British Sugar has partnered with AgriSound to run a 24-month pilot of in-field pollinator sensors. These smart devices track the number and frequency of pollinators in real time via a live dashboard. The insights are helping growers make informed spraying decisions and identify areas where additional habitat or interventions could enhance pollinator activity.
Together, these initiatives highlight British Sugar’s commitment to building a more sustainable, resilient and environmentally responsible agricultural future.
A sugar beet grower with one of the agricultural account managers from British Sugar, UK
