Woes gripping sugar industry bigger than Mumias

The focus on problems facing Mumias Sugar Company Limited should not deflect attention from the bigger crisis in an industry that supports hundreds of thousands of people in the western Kenya sugar belt.

Indeed, even a casual look at the region shows the industry is intricately weaved into the rural economies of the region, and its downfall could tragic. The debate should, therefore, not be whether the industry can be saved, but how it will be done in view of the limited left before Comesa partner states start exporting their sugar to Kenya next February.

Although industry players led by the Government want an extension of the safeguard that locked out sugar from Comesa, their case is undermined by failure to implement any of the measures agreed with the regional trade body. Key stakeholders don’t have a choice but to find ways of repositioning the sub-sector competitively.

At the very least, the industry must go beyond sugar and embrace value addition that would open up more markets for the various products related to sugar processing. As a first step county governments in the cane growing areas can help farmers move away from rain-fed agriculture to irrigation.

Kenya has enough technical experts to advise farmers on how they can best tap rainwater by building mini-dams at the individual and community levels, even as funds are being sought to build large ones.

This is important because Kenya’s production costs for sugar are more than twice other producers in Comesa and our sugar simply can’t compete against them. Adoption of faster maturing can with higher sugar content should also be pursued. The current situation where local cane takes between 15 and 20 months to mature is simply untenable, because the competition enjoys a growing cycle of 10 to 12 months.

Agricultural officers should help farmers diversify into dairy and horticultural farming. To its credit, Mumias Sugar is already encouraging its contracted farmers to take baby steps in this direction.

Other companies should follow suit, because there is no guarantee that these measures will succeed in holding the sugar imports at bay. These might very well turn out to be no more than temporary measures and the patient could still have to face radical surgery.

The political leaders’ responsibility can’t be gainsaid, nut they should use it with wisdom. Temptations to grandstand should be avoided at all costs, as should the usual tendency of looking for scapegoats. Yes, the list of policy failures is a long one. But all the stakeholders bear a degree of responsibility.

Instead, the leaders should help in sensitizing farmers about the challenges facing the industry and mapping out the way forward including dissuading them from selling contracted cane to third parties.

The current practice where some Johnny-come-latelies sugar millers set up infrastructure to buy cane from farmers already contracted to other producers threatens the longer-term viability of the industry. Failure to stamp out the practice would force the firms affected to withhold farming inputs from farmers, leading to even poorer yields and higher production costs all round.