SQR Software Company Profile

SQR Software was formed in November 1994. Development of the farmer version of CanePro began in January 1995 in response to a request by sugarcane farmers for an agricultural management tool. Thus, from the start, CanePro was developed in partnership with the sugar industry aimed at meeting the specific needs of sugarcane growing operations. The initial farmer version of CanePro – designed for a single user on a Paradox database – was released in 1997 to South African sugarcane farmers. Adoption of “Farmer CanePro” has been rapid and the number of users continues to grow. There are currently over 250? sugarcane farmers in South Africa and Swaziland using “Farmer CanePro”.

In early 1999, after a lengthy evaluation process, Illovo Sugar adopted CanePro as their IT solution of choice for their agricultural operations. This resulted in further collaborative development of “Estate CanePro”. This estate version, built on Microsoft SQL Server, allows for multiple-user access, database security and includes many other database features that were not necessary in the farmer version. In addition, agricultural decision-support capabilities, for example the harvest planning module and resource planning, were developed to assist with decision-making on tasks unique to large commercial sugarcane operations.
SQR Software is committed to improving and further developing the functionality of CanePro, this is an ongoing process aimed at meeting the changing needs of our customers.

SQR Software is based in Pietermaritzburg, not far from Durban, and is the major agricultural centre in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.

Members experience:

Egmont Goedeke
Egmont is a founding member of SQR Software and has been involved with the company since its inception. He has twenty years programming experience with the bulk of the experience being in the agricultural sector. He has been involved in all CanePro implantations to-date fulfilling a range of rolls from Project Manager to Trainer.

Mark Goedeke
Mark is a founding member of SQR Software and has been involved with the company from its inception. He has acquired considerable experience on the workings of large agricultural operations and has been involved in the majority of CanePro implementations during the past 10 years.

Mark McGlinchey
Mark has worked in the Southern African Sugar Industry for the past fifteen years. He has been extensively involved in Southern and Central Africa providing specialist advice on yield benchmarking, yield estimates, feasibility studies and irrigation advice using computer simulation models as a management tool.
At SQR Software he is responsible for agricultural decision support systems development and support.

SQR software employs an additional six developers, three support staff, a training co-ordinator and various administrative personnel.

CANEPRO ©

Canepro is used by sugarcane agricultural operations throughout South and East Africa.

Our clients include:

Illovo Sugar Ltd.
Africa’s largest sugar producer with estates in South Africa (Sezela, Umzimkulu, Eston), Swaziland (Ubombo), Malawi (Nchalo and Dwangwa), Zambia (Nakambala) and Tanzania (Kilombero). CanePro is used to manage Illovo’s combined annual production of 5.1 million tons of cane from 52,000 hectare of sugarcane land.

Tongaat Hulett Sugar Ltd.
Africa’s second largest producer with operations in South Africa (Maidstone), Swaziland (Tambankulu), Mozambique (Xinavane and Mafambisse), and Zimbabwe (Mkwasine). An annual production of 1.9 million tons of cane from 29,000 hectares is managed through CanePro.

Royal Swazi Sugar Corporation (RSSC)
Swaziland’s biggest sugar producer. RSSC consists of two primary estates delivering in excess of 2 million tons of cane to two mills (Simunye and Mhlume).

TSB Sugar
with agricultural operations at Malelane and Komatipoort (South Africa). TSB Sugar harvests 710 000 tons of cane annually from just over 7,000 ha of sugarcane land.

TPC, Moshi, Tanzania
CanePro is use to manage an annual production of 600 000 tons of cane from approximately 8,000 ha of sugarcane.

Crookes Brothers, South Africa
An agricultural operation harvesting 600 000 tons of cane from farms spread throughout the sugar belt from Scottburgh in the South to Komatipoort in the Mpumalanga Lowveld.

A number of smaller operations in South Africa harvesting between 300 000 and 600 000 tons of cane annually.

The cumulative production from these operations amounts to some 12 million tons of cane per annum from over 140,000 hectares of sugarcane land.

At a number of these estates CanePro is also used as an agricultural payroll system. On Illovo Sugar estates throughout Africa, the activities of some 13,000 – 15,000 employees are captured daily and paid either monthly or weekly through CanePro.