Farmers opposed to sugar millers' move to harvest premature cane

Sugar millers, already experiencing an acute cane shortage, could be in more trouble with farmers now threatening to boycott deliveries.

Spot checks around Sony, Chemelil and Muhoroni sugar belts revealed crippling deficiency of mature cane for harvest, leading to a big shortfall in production.

Investigations further revealed some factories were harvesting premature cane to keep their operations going.

While cane is supposed to be harvested after at least 18 months, some millers have been harvesting it at about 14 to 16 months - against the farmers' will.

The challenges compound the reported scarcity of sugar in the market, leading many retailers to hoard the commodity in anticipation of future price increase.

Joseph Adongo, chairman of the Sony branch, vowed to mobilise cane farmers to boycott deliveries until the company would stop harvesting premature cane.

Farmers said premature harvesting would result in low yields and less income.

Cane growers said harvesting of sugarcane at peak maturity helped realise maximum millable weight with insignificant field tonnage losses.

They said millers should pay Sh5,000 per tonne of cane as the price of sugar had shot up to about Sh200 a kilo.

Thursday, cane farmers in Awendo, led by John Omollo and Dominic Akongo of the Kenya National Sugarcane Federation, asked the millers to start an aggressive farming campaigns.