- With production having grown from 445,000 metric tonnes to 832,185 metric tonnes recently, the government’s focus should be on exports.
- Sugar can be Kenya’s new foreign exchange earner and a major employment creator.
Image: FILE
At a recent high table diplomatic event in Kenya, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, one of the keynote guests at the decorated event, took advantage of the moment to make an important plea for his country.
As Uganda’s number one diplomat, Museveni was doing what other heads of states and governments do when they get an opportunity to visit friendly states abroad.
He created an impression at the event by his plea, that Uganda is stuck with surplus sugar that has for years been receiving a ready market in Kenya.
Museveni’s host, President William Ruto, perhaps well informed about the current status of the Kenyan sugar sector did not give any public response to his guest’s loud appeal. Kenya has produced enough sugar for itself recently and has recorded surplus production, that requires exports.
The Ugandan sugar farmers and millers are in trouble because Kenya has reawakened from its slumber. The country has for years been a dumping ground for metric tonnes of imported and sometimes dangerous sugar.
Even local factories abandoned local cane farmers to important cheap sugar from far and wide making the sugar sector completely unbearable.
The Ugandan government is known to have supported progressive policies over the past 20 years intended to facilitate the growth of the sugarcane industry. Its focus in the main sugarcane-producing sub-regions of Busoga, Buganda and Bunyoro eventually paid off, making Uganda a sugar exporting country, with Kenya as her main export destination.
Agriculture Principal Secretary Kiprono Rono recently communicated a ban on sugar importation which the Department of Interior has come on stage to implement, shattering hopes for importation by barons who hoped to take advantage on the desperate situation that existed a while ago.
Two years ago, cost of sugar was completely unbearable for many. But things are changing as the State Department of Agriculture continues to press more for local production.
The market is already awash with sugar from popular Kenyan millers including Mumias, Sony, Muhoroni, Chemelil and Nzoia, among others. The state’s resolve to privatise some of the four state-owned millers to attract capital investment from the private sector is expected to resuscitate the industry even further.
In order to control the price of sugar and protect the market from infiltration, Kiprono also recently announced that the approved price of sugarcane will now stand at 5,000, a decision meant to make the commodity affordable locally and economically sensible to farmers who are also supported with farm input at subsidised prices by the government.
The state has done well to motivate the farmers and staff of various millers by releasing the Sh1.7 billion previously held in arrears, thus jumpstarting the industry.
The resultant feedback on some of these actions have seen the quick return of our popular brands in the shelves and production of several metric tonnes in surplus.
Is it not good thing to see Muhoroni and Chemelil milling just as is Nzoia and the giant Mumias?
The government should remain in control of sugar importation and remain resistant to the push by barons using punitive clauses to push for importation. This is an opportunity to give local farmers a platform to produce even more. The government should go all out to promote exportation of value-added products from the sugar sector. This will enable farmers to increase acreage currently on sugarcane farming.
With production having grown from 445,000 metric tonnes to 832,185 metric tonnes recently, the government’s focus should be on exports. Sugar can be Kenya’s new foreign exchange earner and a major employment creator.
Kenyan economy can benefit greatly from this new development as the revival of the sugar sector begins to pay up.
It is important that interventions by the State Department of Agriculture that may appear successful be continued. This includes the resolve to distribute certified subsidised fertiliser to all farmers, adherence to the zoning rules and the embracing of the new 27 seed variety for sugarcane, which scientists say can afford high sucrose levels.
It is obvious that privatising state-owned entities in the sugar milling sector appear to be the best option at the moment. After all, governments are known not to have succeeded in running business entities.
The writer is a chief officer in Homa county