• The Prime CS said the greatest concern at the moment is the acute cane shortage leading to closure of sugar mills.
• Mudavadi also said there was an urgent need to address the issue of old mills, high indebtedness, managerial incompetence and competition from cheap imports.
Image: MUSALIA MUDAVADI/ TWITTER
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has said there is an urgent need for leaders to find lasting solutions to challenges facing the sugar industry in the country.
He said the sector needs protection owing to its critical importance to the country especially in Western Kenya in terms of income and employment.
"We have a national problem that requires leaders to engage for a lasting solution to the hindrances the industry faces. There are no easy options. If one option cannot work, we must bite the bullet and take the other," he said.
Mudavadi spoke in Kisumu when he presided over the opening of the regional Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) show at Mamboleo Show Grounds on Friday.
He noted that the sugar sector has faced challenges that have crippled it over time including the acute shortage of cane.
"The greatest concern at the moment is the acute cane shortage leading to closure of sugar mills. This has been inevitable given that farmers are demotivated for being owed millions in unpaid delivered cane and have stopped growing cane," he said.
The Prime CS said these issues coupled with the global shortage have resulted in increased price of sugar to over Sh200 per kg in recent weeks.
"We must be honest that scarcity of the commodity is the cause of current high prices. We must also be honest that there are no easy solutions to longstanding issues aggravating the sugar industry," he said.
Mudavadi also said there was an urgent need to address the issue of old mills, high indebtedness, managerial incompetence and competition from cheap imports.
He assured that the government is committed to purposefully put money in farmers' pockets through increased production, agro-processing and value addition.
Subsidising production other than consumption, he pointed out, is the route the Kenya Kwanza administration has resolved to take under its Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda.
He added that the country has to transform from subsistence agriculture to a commercially and globally competitive and innovative industry.
"To achieve these immense potentials in agriculture, we have to combat reducing soil fertility, deteriorating climatic conditions due to global warming and reducing farm sizes. We must determine application of appropriate fertilizers for example,"Mudavadi said.