NAIROBI, Kenya, April 8 – The Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) has announced that soon sugarcane farmers will be paid based on the sucrose content of their cane delivered to factories.
The newly appointed AFA Chairman, Cornelly Serem, noted that farmers will now be earning double the amount of cane proceeds per tonne based on the current weighbridge payment system.
“Currently, based on the government set cane prices, farmers earn Sh. 4,584 per tonne, while under a sucrose based system sugarcane growers will get returns as high as Sh. 9,000 per tonne,” he said.
Serem says the government has invested in developing new cane varieties over the years, which, he said, have very high sucrose content unlike the old cane variety that most farmers grow within the Nyando Sugar Belt region.
“There are almost four to five new sugarcane varieties, which has good yields and high sucrose content, our farmers must be encouraged to abandon the old variety to the new varieties,” he said while on a visit to Chemelil Sugar Company.
The Sugar Directorate’s interim Chief Executive Officer, Willis Awudi, who accompanied the Chairman, says the new varieties have a wide range of benefits for the farmer.
He noted that the new cane varieties are disease resistant, have high yields, and mature early (between 12 and 14 months) as compared to the old varieties, which mature between 18 and 20 months.
Chemelil Sugar Company’s acting Managing Director, Jacqueline Kotonya, announced that they are currently undertaking trials of the new varieties in their nucleus.
However, Kotonya decried the low uptake of the new varieties by farmers, noting that they are still stuck with the old varieties.
“The company had started sensitizing framers on the new varieties way back in 2020 but it was disrupted by COVID19 pandemic, however we are still engaging them through field days,” she said.
Serem visited the company’s sucrose-based cane testing unit (CTU), which has been installed at the factory and is ready to start operation once farmers embrace the planting of the new cane varieties.
Kotonya took the opportunity to talk about the challenges faced by the company, which include a cane shortage that results in inadequate supply to the factory, reduced sugar production, and revenue generation that has affected the company’s ability to meet the expectations of its stakeholders.
She further appealed to AFA to facilitate government payment of the pending 60 percent owed to farmers as cane arrears for the year 2021.
Through the Chairman, AFA announced that the government will consider paying Chemelil Sugar Company employees over Sh. 995 million they are owed in salaries not paid for the last 5 years.
Serem further announced that the Authority will push for the speedy restoration of the Sugar Development Levy (SDL) to enable the Sugar Directorate to fund farmers’ acquisition of farm inputs for cane development using new sugarcane varieties.
