The origins of Eswatini’s sugar industry can be traced back to an irrigation project in the lowveld area at Big Bend in 1956. Early production at the Big Bend mill amounted to 5 600 tons per annum. This mill was subsequently upgraded along with the construction of a second mill further north at Mhlume in 1960. The 1964/65 season realised a production of 100 000 tons. The industry took a quantum leap in 1980 with the commissioning of a third mill at Simunye. By the end of the 1992/93 season, Eswatini’s sugar production had been pushed to 471 000 tons – nearly 90 times the output of the fledgling industry of the 1950s. Today sugar represents the single biggest industry with revenues in excess of (US$400 million: April 2017) per annum.