Listen to stakeholders on sugarcane factories

Boda boda rider captured at Ejinja area along Mumias - Busia road ferrying handful sugarcane to unknown destination on October 30, 2021. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard] Kenya's sugarcane industry is a tale of cruelty directed at the farmer. The government's closure of factories in Nyando sugar belt for four months without listening to stakeholders does not change that history. The Nyando belt is unique in two ways. First, it is the birthplace of state involvement in the cane industry through construction of Muhoroni Sugar Company in 1967. Chemelil Sugar Company followed in 1968, although Miwani and Kibos have their own earlier histories. The second reason is the delicate ethnic balance that cane factories help maintain. There is always a striking sense of collectiveness between Nandi, Luo and Kipsigis peoples who work in the state-run entities. The factories are one of the few places where the three communities join hands to bargain for better working conditions despite flimsy political differences. Any interference with the above balance has violent results. Cattle theft triggers ethnic conflict along the Kisumu-Nandi-Kericho counties border when the factories are closed. These conflicts, avoidable through consultations on issues affecting the cane industry, often result in violent deaths. Lack of consultations with cane stakeholders is a historical issue tied to racism, exploitation and dictatorial colonial behaviour. Sugarcane is a slavery crop worldwide and slavery is a relationship between narrow-minded people who think they are powerful and those they think are powerless. The green crop is mostly found in regions where White slave dealers took millions of Black people to produce sugar under notoriously cruel conditions - The Caribbean and South America. The history of cane farming in Kenya is the story of a similar slavery. In the Nyando belt, for instance, the slave-like conditions for settlement of small-scale Nandi, Luo and Kipsigis cane farmers who continue to supply over 90 per cent of cane to Kenyan factories, were set by Britain through exploitative Commonwealth and World Bank loans. One such dictatorial condition for the 1962 Muhoroni Settlement Scheme was that the small scale farmer was 'loaned' ten acres of land. He was also escorted with one dairy cow and a wire mesh with cedar poles to fence his new homestead. The second dictatorial condition was that 7 of the 10 acres had to be under sugarcane. The World Bank would deduct its huge 'loan' from this farm across 30 years every time the farmer delivered harvest to Muhoroni Factory. This happened despite the 'loan' itself never having been an actual cash project that put money in the farmer's bank account. Two acres were for subsistence crops such as maize and beans and for the cow to graze on. The remaining one acre was for his homestead. The third and worst condition was there would be no title deed for the cane farmer. Everyone would get theirs at the end of the 30-year loan repayment. Most poor, elderly and dying farmers across the Muhoroni Settlement Scheme secured their land titles in the mid-1990s. Nearly all research studies on the history of sugarcane settlement schemes agree that lack of consultations with cane farmers was a deeply inhuman act. Withholding title deeds bonded people to Muhoroni factory and meant farmers could not access loans elsewhere. They were slaves in everything but name. A good number of Cabinet Secretaries in the hustler government have gone to school. They understand that the best way to approach a hustler's problem is to listen to the hustler. These are the farmers, millers and the host of other hustler cane workers who depend on the factories for livelihood. To not listen to these people in the current case is to further the slavery that has defined cane farming here for 60 years. The writer is a scholar

Listen to stakeholders on sugarcane factories

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Listen to stakeholders on sugarcane factories

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