Farmers lose Sh2.7b due to unharvested sugarcane

By Leonard Korir

Farmers in Trans Mara District have lost Sh2.7 billion in the last seven years following failure by companies to harvest sugarcane.

Agriculture Minister William Ruto said the Government had appointed consultants to expand factories in a bid to accommodate rising sugarcane production in the region.

He said farmers were making loses due to unharvested sugarcane and directed Sony Sugar Company to harvest mature cane.

Agriculture Minister William Ruto inspects sugarcane in a plantation. He said the Government had allocated Sh500 million to the Agricultural Finance Corporation for farmers to borrow. [PHOTO: FILE]

Ruto said residents were poor yet they had unharvested crops in their farms.

"My ministry has acquired a new hybrid sugarcane plant that matures within 12 months instead of 18 to 22 months," he said.

Speaking at Keyian Division during his tour, Ruto told farmers that from January next year, sugarcane would be weighed in the farms and sucrose content determined before it is ferried to factories. "This is not a new law and we must follow it to the letter. The farmers’ job ends in the farm. What remains should be handled by milling factories," he said.

Ruto said the Government had allocated Sh500 million through the Kenya Sugar Board to be given to farmers by the Agricultural Finance Corporation.

　

unharvested or abandoned

More than 2,000 hectares of sugarcane belonging to 1,000 farmers have been unharvested for more than seven years.

District Agriculture Officer Ernest Muendo said 1,020 hectares of cane have not been harvested, while 496 hectares were abandoned due to over maturity and grazing.

The most affected is the Keyian Group Ranch with 450 hectares of sugarcane.

According to the Ranch’s Manager Mr Thomas ole Maito, the loss was a setback to the community shifting from pastoralist life to modern mixed farming.

Sugarcane in Trans Mara accounts for 40 per cent of cane processed by Sony Company.

However, the miller’s crushing capacity of 3,000 tonnes a day is overstretched by the rising cane production in the upper belt.

Trans Mara Sugar Factory licensed in 2006 was urged to speed up construction of a new miller at Enoosaen to stop further losses incurred by farmers.