• Busolo said they will defend a free market saying zoning has impoverished hundreds of farmers in Western Kenya.
• Zoning led public millers to accumulate a debt of over Sh1.7 billion.
Representatives of sugarcane farmers say they fully support the new regulations that have ended zoning in cane growing.
Previously, farmers could not sell their cane to millers outside their zones, even when those millers failed to pay them.
However, with the publication of Crops General Regulation 2020, farmers can be contracted by millers outside their zones.
According to the Kenya National Alliance of Sugarcane Farmers Organisation (KNASFO) chairman Saulo Busolo, this is a major breakthrough for farmers who will no longer be tied to non-performing millers.
Busolo said they will rally behind the regulations as stipulated in the Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 84, issued on May 27 by Agriculture CS Peter Munya.
He noted that for long, farmers were forced to incur huge losses.
He said zoning promoted laziness among managers of public mills as they presided over corruption and inefficiencies that led to accumulation of huge arrears for farmers, suppliers and transporters.
Busolo said they will defend a free market, saying zoning has impoverished hundreds of farmers in Western Kenya.
He said zoning made farmers to have no recourse and this has led public millers to accumulate a debt of over Sh1.7 billion.
“We are happy that for the first time farmers will have the opportunity to engage any miller, out grower institution or any other person for farming, harvesting, transporting and supply of the sugarcane,” he said.
The chairman noted that lack of regulations in the sector had disadvantaged farmers as unscrupulous people take advantage to create instability, hence there was need for a strong farmer agency to strengthen their contribution towards addressing the challenges.
Kenya Sugarcane Growers Association secretary-general Richard Ogendo said importation of sugar continues to impact negatively on the sugar industry as illegal and cheap sugar continues to find its way in the country.
Ogendo said the government must find a way of tackling this matter.
“We believe the Ministry of Trade and Industrialisation, under which Comesa docket falls, must be engaged in finding a solution by invoking the relevant Comesa clauses on sugar surges,” he said.
The two supported the establishment of the sugarcane pricing committee that will regulate costing of farmers’ sugarcane.
The gazzeted regulations provide appointment of stakeholders committee to determine cane pricing.