Sugar cane and tobacco farmers in Migori are debating which crop should take centre stage for the region’s economic growth.
While pro-cane farmers argue that tobacco has been a curse in the area considering the health and environmental risks it has exposed people to, those in favour of tobacco said cane farmers are no better because they have been suffering for long.
Some cane farmers have been complaining of delayed payments for their produce and delayed cane harvesting. The government is planning to lease five state-owned sugar factories in Western Kenya in a bid to revive the sector.
On Wednesday, sugar industry players pleaded with the few tobacco farmers in South Nyanza to stop farming the crop and instead grow sugar cane and other 'profitable crops' to improve their livelihoods.
Retired civil servant William Soti argued that tobacco was responsible for the "abject poverty and the state of hopelessness" in the region.
Soti, a successful sugar cane farmer in the Awendo sugar belt, urged farmers still growing tobacco in Migori, Rongo, Uriri, Suna West, Suna East, Kuria West and Kuria East subcounties to shift to sugar cane, soya beans or maize farming. He said these crops are well-paying and less labour-intensive.
Soti said it was sad that some tobacco companies have continued to exploit farmers by offering them poor prices and delaying their dues for leaf deliveries.
“We are going to mount a serious campaign in southern Nyanza to sensitise the farmers on the risks of tobacco farming. We cannot sit back and allow the exploitation of our people to continue,” Soti, also a farmers’ union official in the sugar sector, said.
Bernard Kisa, a tobacco farmer and a farmers’ representative from Kamsaki area, told the cane farmers to mind their own business and stop interfering with those growing tobacco.
“Let them refrain from throwing stones at others when they are living in glass houses. The problems sugar cane farmers are facing today are more than what a tobacco farmer is going through at the moment, so they should stop bothering our farmers,” Kisa said.
The latest debate by the two groups of farmers is likely to cause a serious conflict between the major players in the sugar and tobacco subsectors in the region.
With the assistance of companies like Sony, Sukari Industries and Transmara Sugar Company for the sugar cane farmers and British American Tobacco (BAT) for the tobacco growers, each set of farmers is fighting to reclaim a bigger space in the agricultural industry.
According to economists from the region, both subsectors are sailing in the same boat of economic woes and none can chest-thump of doing better than the other.
John Odera, an economist and a businessman in Migori, said both crops are not minting enough money for the locals.
“Both subsectors are doing poorly in growing wealth to the local people as those in charge do not mind about the welfare of the important cogs producing the raw materials – in this case the farmer,” he said.
Odera said the government must put in place the right policies, the right efforts and the right people to run the sector to benefit farmers.
Prof Onyango Ochanda said the problems of poor prices, mismanagement, lack of market and unfair competition, especially in the sugar industry, can be handled well through the enforcement of the right policies.
“Many farmers are abandoning growing sugar cane today in this region because of delayed payments of farmers’ dues and delayed cane harvesting by the milling plants, as well as the exerting high cost of producing cane,” he said during an interview in Migori town recently.
For tobacco farmers, their woes started with the intensive campaigns by those who brand the crop as hazardous to the health of farmers because of the dangerous chemicals and pesticides used in growing it.
Local leaders have also said the crop is detrimental to the environment because it requires tonnes of wood fuel to dry it.
The anti-tobacco wars in the region in the past years led to some companies like Alliance–One to relocate to other countries after they were accused of paying the farmers poorly and not giving them protective gear.
As a result, the sector which used to command over 20,000 farmers today has less than 500 serious growers with no dependable market to consume their produce.
In the 1980s, before the problems dogging the two subsectors started, the crops used to fetch good money for farmers.
During the payment season for tobacco and sugar cane, some men would marry additional wives, while some would camp in bars and hotels for days making merry.
Edited by A.N
