Kasinthula Cane Growers Limited

KCGL goes back to the early 1990s, when Illovo, a South African sugar exporter, was looking to increase sugar production in Malawi. Illovo had just finished developing Alumenda Estate to south of its Nchalo Sugar Mill in the southern part of the country. “They wanted to expand further after developing the Alumenda Estate,” remembers Brian, “but to do so they would have had to evict the people around the estate as there was hardly any unoccupied land. So they had to find a role for these people, and provide them employment.”

Illovo offered people in the surrounding villages an opportunity to become growers to supply its mill with sugarcane—an offer which they ultimately refused for fear they would lose their lands to Illovo. Their decision was perhaps influenced by a period of wider instability in the country, as Malawi was transitioning from a one-party to a multi-party political system.

At the same time, many rice cooperatives throughout the country were disappearing due to mismanagement. Among those collapsing was the rice cooperative near Kasinthula. So the Kasinthula rice farmers initially approached Illovo with the idea of becoming sugarcane farmers instead. The government helped them by forming a public-private partnership to work the land. “The government decided it was a good idea,” recalls Brian, “given all of the political and thus economic change in the country, and then they approached the company together.”

These farmers eventually became the founding members of KCGL and the Trust in 1997.