By Patrick Githinji

Sucrose will soon determine how sugar cane farmers are paid, Financial Journal has learnt.

The move comes ahead of the 2012 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) safeguards, which require sugar millers to pay farmers for cane delivered according to the sucrose content and not on tonnage.

As the country noses close to the 2012 deadline, preparations to make the shift are underway with Kenya Sugar Board (KSB) and Sugar Development Fund (SDF) set to acquire a Sh140 million sucrose-testing equipment to be installed at Nzoia Sugar Company.

"This pilot phase will develop management procedures, capture data under local conditions and evaluate recommended cane testing and payment scheme," KSB Chief Executive Ms Rosemary Mkok said.

Mkok says the project will also test and evaluate the technology involved in testing sucrose, its adoption, and maintenance regime, establish installation and running costs.

"This will give stakeholders including farmers a chance to experience cane quality testing and payment scheme and minimise possibilities of rejection."

Adequate information

It is hoped that once adequate information on the system is collected and adjustments made to suit local conditions, millers and farmers alike would warm up to the system.

Presently, farmers are paid depending on tonnage. They receive an average of Sh3,149 a tonne. However, this mode of payment contravenes the Sugar Act 2001, which requires that payment for cane be made according to the sucrose content.

Mkok says to address the challenges hindering the implementation of the Sugar Act, the Sugar cane Pricing Committee was established in 2003. The committee will determine cane prices at least twice in a year.

"The new system will cover all sugar belts to guarantee maximum benefits to farmers."

Preparations to shift from tonnage-based pricing system to sucrose content begun in 2008, and it is expected to be complete by next year.

Millers have initiated training and sensitisation programmes to bring farmers on board in the new pricing regime.

Mumias Sugar Company (MSC), the biggest miller in the country, has already started educating its farmers on the benefits of the new payment system.

"We have trained our field officers and farmers on seed cane varieties with high content of sucrose," says Evans Kidero, MSC chief executive.

Hailing the new payment regime as timely, Kidero says the shift would ensure farmers apply appropriate resources to cane husbandry. "This will translate into more raw material for our electricity production plant and soon to be completed ethanol plant," he notes.

The move, Kidero says, will ensure farmers use fertiliser issued for cane growing rather than using it in other farming activities. He also says the new system will promote responsible cane farming and significantly cut sugar cane trash.

"This will also reduce the amount of trash transported to the millers, estimated at about 12 per cent of the total crop delivered to factories."

Nzoia Sugar Company, which plans to educate its farmers on the payment scheme later this month, has also warmed up to the shift. "It is a timely intervention to ensure a farmer who spends heavily on his crop also benefits," an officer at Nzoia Sugar Company said.

In preparation for the new scheme, the Kenya Sugar Research Foundation (KESREF) has launched the KEN 83737 seed cane variety.

The locally manufactured seed variety, with a 15-16 month gestation period, has a high nutrient conversion ration.

The variety has a high tolerance of water-logged areas, is resistant to drought, and ideal for erratic weather patterns.

In the face of these changes, farmers remain divided, with some questioning the fairness of the payment scheme.

Kephers Wangila, a sugar cane farmer, says the new system will address instances where farmers with varying quality of the crop, are paid according to tonnage to the disadvantage of those who invested heavily on their farms.

"This is the only way to reward farmers who invest heavily on their sugar cane farms."

Farmers wary

Some farmers, however, are uneasy with the system, saying it limits open verification by outgrowers.

"The new payment regime will expose farmers to losses since they don’t have the knowledge to determine sucrose content," Shadrack Ouma, a farmers’ activist in Mumias says.

He says in the past, farmers incurred losses through faulty weighing scales, transport and deliberate negligence by the management of sugar millers.

"I am not sure this method addresses the issues we have always raised."

—pgithinji@standardmedia.co.ke