The newly sugar-processing plant which is being developed by Tanzania Engineering and Manufacturing Design Organisation (TEMDO) has reached 40 percent and is expected to be completed by December this year. The machine that would address the recurring sugar shortages will be able to process one ton of sugarcane per hour where it will have average processing of ten tons per day.
This was said by TEMDO Director General, Prof. Frederick Kahimba during the tour of the Minister of Industry and Trade in Dar es Salaam, recently. The small machinery would support the establishment of small sugar-processing factories. The manufacture and design of machines began in March this year and is expected to begin processing early next year. He said the plant will solve the problem of sugar supply as it will be processed by small industries using machines that will be manufactured by TEMDO.
"The Government encourages smallholder producers to increase sugarcane production through a system of smallholder farmers starting from households and even small groups," said Prof. Kahimba. "Let us remember that the big factories have their large sugarcane farms which makes it very likely that smallholder sugarcane will not be crushed if there is a large production of sugarcane from their farms," said Prof. Kahimba.
He said when the plant is completed it will be sold for 250m/- so that small scale manufacturers can buy and process sugar. Prof. Kahimba said the production of sugarcane per acre has increased in recent times and every year more than 200,000 tonnes of sugarcane are missing from the market, prompting the Government to give TEMDO the responsibility to build plants that will help sugarcane growers. "To start manufacturing machinery and opening factories we are creating a market and new jobs," said Prof. Kahimba.
He said: "The largest production of sugarcane is in Morogoro, Kagera and Kilimanjaro regions but there are also other regions producing sugarcane. The plant technologies called pan sulphitation which are currently being used in the industry, its availability of sugar from crushed cane is from 6 percent to 7,2 percent per tonne of crushed cane."
"TEMDO continues to design a plant that will use the most modern technology whose sugar content is from 9 percent to 11 percent per tonne of sugarcane," said Prof. Kahimba adding that technology is technically called sugar production using vacuum pan evaporators.