Private sugar millers in Western Kenya warned against poaching cane

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett has warned private millers against encroaching on contracted cane farms belonging to State-owned sugar factories.

The CS took issue with rising complaints filed by Sony, Chemelil, Nzoia, Muhoroni and Miwani sugar companies that private factories were secretly harvesting their crops and milling them.

“I don’t want to hear these complaints again. Stick to your defined jurisdictions and develop your own cane farms as opposed to targeting others,” said the CS after meeting the managers of Kibos, West Kenya and Butali sugar factories while touring the expansive sugar belt in Nyanza and Western regions.

During the tour, the CS met the boards of management of the private mills separately and held closed-door meetings with the authorities.

Although the Press was locked out of the Kibos meeting,, sources indicated that the CS reprimanded the management for allowing the malpractice to go on.

Demanding Explanation

The Sugar Directorate had written a letter to the management of two private millers demanding an explanation on why they were harvesting and hauling cane from other millers’ zones.

The letter was prompted by complaints lodged by a number of factories who claimed that the recovery of cash advanced to farmers had become a nightmare.

Traditionally, the State-owned farms help farmers to prepare  and develop their crops - from planting and weeding to harvesting - by way of subsidies through the provision of seed cane and fertiliser.

The seed cane cost is recovered only when the miller harvests the farmers’ crops.

But the State mills managers noted that recovery was not possible when the farmers opted to deliver their cane elsewhere, in effect leading to losses running into millions of shillings.

Sony Managing Director Jane Pamela and her Chemelil counterpart, Charles Owele, said they were major casualties of the malpractice.

INVESTING HEAVILY

“We can’t keep investing heavily in cane growing only for someone else to harvest it,”claimed Mr Owele.

But the managers of the private firms declined to comment, saying the matter was being resolved. Phone calls to Kibos Managing Director Raju Singh for a comment went unanswered.

As the managers complained, some farmers interviewed claimed that they had resorted to selling their cane to the private firms because of delayed payment and pricing variations.

“If the challenges are sorted, then we will have no problem with millers,” said Killion Osur of Muhoroni Farmers Co-operative Society.

He said under the free market capitalism and liberalised market economy, their choices were wide.