Kenya’s sugar production dropped by nearly a quarter or 24.89 per cent over the eight months to August 2025, signalling bigger imports to cover for the fall.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) show that in the eight months to August this year, factories produced 406,807 tonnes of sugar, down from 541,681 tonnes in the same period last year.
Kenyan sugar production declined significantly in early to mid-2025 due to a severe shortage of mature sugarcane, resulting from prior excess harvesting and reduced cultivation.
The shortage of mature cane prompted the Kenya Sugar Board to order the temporary closure of millers in key sugarcane growing zones in western Kenya for three months starting July 14, 2025, amid concerns over the harvest of immature crop to produce the sweetener.
The closure targeted seven factories, including Mumias, Butali, and West Kenya in Kakamega. It also affected Nzoia and Naitiri in Bungoma, and the Busia Sugar Industry and Olepito in Busia.
The entrance to Mumias Sugar Company.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
The four-month ban affected factories lacking sufficient mature cane and suffering from cane poaching, where millers harvested from growers with younger crops, sometimes only 10–13 months old, instead of the ideal 16–18 months for the optimum development of sucrose.
Sucrose, or the sweet juice in cane, is what is used to produce sugar crystals. To taper the impact of the milling suspension, the government has ramped up imports under duty-free provisions to fill the shortfall, which helped stabilise local prices.
The KNBS data shows that sugar production fell to its lowest this year in May, with 32,760 tonnes available from local factories, which has slightly improved to 40,800 tonnes in August. Cane deliveries declined from 501,604 tonnes in July 2025 to 465,981 thousand tonnes in August 2025.
Trucks at the port of Mombasa waiting to be loaded with bags of imported sugar in this file photo.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
“Cumulatively, a total of 4.58 million tonnes was delivered in the first eight months of 2025, compared to 6.3 million tonnes over the same period in 2024,” added KNBS.
KNBS’s quarter statistics show that the import bill in the three months to June grew to Sh693.6 billion from Sh656 billion last year due to higher imports of iron, steel, and sugar.
“The growth was primarily driven by an increase in imports of industrial machinery (18 per cent), iron and steel (84 per cent), sugars, molasses, and honey (56.9 per cent), and road motor vehicles (38 per cent),” said KNBS.
“During the quarter under review, imports from Africa expanded to Sh73.4 billion, reflecting an increase of 18.9 per cent from the second quarter of 2024. The rise in import bill was partly due to increased imports of sugar from Uganda, essential oils from Eswatini, and iron and steel from South Africa.”
The value of sugar, molasses, and honey imports stood at 13.4 billion in the second quarter of 2025 from 8.5 billion in a similar period last year.
Kenya mainly imports sugar from Brazil, India, and Egypt.
