Sugarcane farmers have asked for more Government support claiming they have been sidelined.

Cane farmers said while their counterparts in the main sugarcane growing areas of Nyanza and Western have been enjoying incentives from the national government, the only incentives they enjoy come from Kwale International Sugar Company (Kiscol).

Kiscol is a $200 million (Sh20.4 billion) sugar-processing facility under construction and has the capacity to hold 5,500 hectares of cultivated cane, a sugar mill, an 18 megawatt power plant and an irrigation and water management system, resulting in affordable, locally grown sugar.

The project, being one of the largest green field projects in Africa, has already commenced milling. It was started in 2007 as a Pabari Investments Limited flagship project.

The projected sugar production will help in meeting the deficit in Kenya’s consumption, which is approximately 200,000 tonnes per year.

Kiscol, which has revived cane growing in the coastal county after the collapse of Ramisi Sugar in the late 80s, works with out-growers (contract farmers) in Kwale who are the project’s main beneficiaries.

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The company, which is 80 per cent Kenyan-owned and 20 per cent Mauritian, has registered over 1,200 farmers to whom it supplies seed cane and offered extension services.

Essential services

The out-growers, who are set to produce sugarcane on 4,200 hectares of land, have called on Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett to support them with similar incentives like those given to farmers in other sugarcane growing areas.

“We are solely reliant on Kiscol, which has taken it upon itself to offer some very essential services, which the Government ought to have been doing in the first place,” Selemani Mwasingo, an out-grower, said.

Mr Mwasingo said they had been fully supported to the tune of Sh1.2 billion to start their cane growing venture with Kiscol putting up dams to be used for irrigation purposes.

With state-of-the art technology, including a sub-surface, drip-fed irrigation system, Kiscol said it was saving 40 per cent of the water requirements for crop growth. While cane planting commenced in 2008, Kiscol plans to harvest 60 tonnes of rain-fed cane per hectare and 140 tonnes of irrigated cane per hectare.

Another out-grower, Hamisi Mwambomu, said Kiscol had taken up the task of bush clearing, land development as well as rehabilitating all the feeder roads within the former Ramisi Sugarcane growing zone.

The out-growers supply cane to Kiscol and earn revenue from it.

“There are other benefits, which Kiscol has indicated, that out-grower farmers shall access ranging from education to medical cover and grading of roads for farm access,” Mr Mwambomu said.