Farmers want State to subsidise sugarcane farming

By Standard  Reporter

Omondi Anyanga

Sugarcane farmers and leaders from Nyanza want the Government to restore profitability in sugarcane farming before it offloads its stake in five sugar millers. They reckon that addressing challenges in the sub-sector will make it attractive for farmers as well as investors to buy shares.

Led by Nyatike MP Omondi Anyanga, they said the Ministry of Agriculture should extend subsidies to the industry and seal importation loopholes that have seen cheap sugar ground local producers.

“With most of them in losses, this will most likely reduce the interest that farmers will have in buying the shares once the State offloads them. It’s not right putting the cat before the horse,” Anyanga warned. In a process expected to begin this month, the Government intends to sell its 51 per cent stake in five sugar companies to strategic investors in a move that will see it reserve 30 per cent for farmers.

demoralised farmers

The State will then sell the remaining 19 per cent shares holding in Sony, Chemelil, Nzoia, Muhoroni and Miwani milling companies once the millers attain profitability.

 Anyanga said decades of neglect had demoralised sugarcane farmers.

“Families in Nyatike, Ndhiwa, Awendo, Migori and Ururi constituencies rely on cane farming to put food on the table. Even in Western, it’s is the main cash crop. Why would anyone want to dampen the spirit of farmers?” he posed while speaking to The Standard in Nairobi, adding the ministry should put farmers’ interests first, as Deputy President William Ruto did when he was Agriculture minister.

He said the fishing and livestock sub sectors and mining should also be well harnessed and farmers supported in the search of reliable markets.

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