Cane farmers' lobby welcomes sugar sector revival plans

A sugarcane farmers’ lobby has welcomed recommendations for the revival of the ailing sector.

This comes after the Sugar Stakeholders Conference held at Masinde Muliro University on Saturday. 

The National Federation of Sugarcane Farmers deputy secretary general Simon Wesechere said that success in implementation of the recommendations largely relies on the goodwill by elected leaders to ensure they are anchored in the Sugar Act.

The recommendations centred on the gains and challenges of sugarcane farming, milling efficiency and pricing of sugar, as well as sugar sector governance, debt management and sustainable funding model.

Wesechere said lack of political consistency brought about by a lack of a binding clause on all agreements leaves both national and county governments to operate on the whims of the President.

“All, if not most of the proposed recommendations, hinge on a proper legislation, or a set thereof which should be in the Sugar Act and its attendant regulations. Are such clauses in the upcoming Act?” he said. 

While opening the two-day conference on Friday, National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula said that resolutions of the conference would be used to enrich the Sugar Bill 2022.

The National Assembly has summoned MPs this Thursday to deliberate on the memorandum of the proposed writing off of Sh117 billion in debts owed by state-owned sugar companies.

The Sugar Bill 2022 will also be read for the second and third during the session, according to Wetang’ula.

Wesechere said millers have muzzled the voices of farmers, resulting in the killing of organisations that should be speaking on their (farmers') behalf.

He said that some of the recommendations like the establishment of a Sugar Research Institute already exists and only requires revamping, rather than establishing another research centre.

Wesechere said that sugar sector issues were well known and documented and that there was a need to urgently move to implement the various recommendations to rescue the sugar sector from imminent collapse. 

He said that repealing of the Sugar Act, 2001 abolished the Kenya Sugar Board, an agency mandated to regulate the sector.

This, the unionist said, has led to a state of lawlessness in the sector, leading to loss of jobs, delayed payment of farmers, massive imports of cheap sugar, lack of cane development, harvesting immature cane and cane poaching. 

Wesechere said that farmers invest heavily in cane development but still often incur losses occasioned by delayed harvesting, lack of transparency at weighbridges, cane poaching and price fluctuation.