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Mumias Sugar company has in their warehouses close to 15,000 metric turns of unsold stored sugar.
Return on investment in the sugar industry is speculated to drop even further .This follows the expiry of the COMESA market safeguards that has seen an increased imports of processed sugarcane into the country. Players in the industry have reported drop in earnings per shares. The farmer is the one stakeholder carrying the heavy burden of the huge losses in this secto.
“When there’s a lot of sugar in the country the price of sugarcane dwindles thereby discouraging farmers from cultivating the crop and so in the next five years very few farmers will be growing the crop.The huge imports reduce demand for local sugarcane and even local millers struggle to get a share of the market thereby economically upsetting the sugarcane farmer. With the fallen management of the Mumias Sugar factory farmers are looking to grow other crops .” This is the confirmation of a hard reality by Martin wafula in his humble home in Kakamega.
Mileages of sugar plantation meet your eye as you ascend and descend the landscape here. Sugarcane paid his bills, school fees and healthcare but now as his voice trails on the hope is gone. Wrangles and mismanagement in major companies in the industry; the witch called corruption and now the increased imports have been the devils tormrnting them. This has led farmers to burn down their plantations in order to resort to other crops lest sugarcane spoils in the farms.
It is hard to get a harvesting permit.With a crop that takes at least two years to mature farmers face inherent risks of plunging further into debts since most of them rely on loans to foot production costs.
Some have expressed optimism in fast maturing food crops such as maize and groceries which they say have a high economic value.
“I have been growing sugarcane for the past five years and cultivating the crop in exclusivity is bound to cause famine in my household. In terms of profitability growing maize is a better option since its fast maturing. My biggest challenge with sugarcane farming is that it takes a long time to mature and after that you also need a permit to harvest and because of competition most a times it is hard to get the permit. This is the end delays the crop longer in the field and thus farmers get losses. Millers usually give out loans in terms of seeds and fertilizers but eventually when you harvest they deduct the expenses from your gross earning . In most cases the companies are the ones profiting most.”
The government has planned a sh 5 Billion to revive Mumias sugar company, with sh 1bn already released.For Kenyans this is the easy way out , the whole sugar sector is ailing and not just one company. The continuous allowance of massive volumes of cheap sugarcane into the country is a move that is surely going to crumble an economy whose backbone is agriculture.
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