Years of neglect turn sugar cane farming from blessing to curse

The traditional expansiveness of lush cover of sugar cane plantations which has been the signature image for the eight settlement schemes of Muhoroni and the Nyando sugar belt no longer exists.

Instead, intermittent patches of between two and three acres of cane is what remains, dotted with houses, fallow land and a few alternative cash crops like coffee.

The original template which guided the land distribution in the settlement schemes, where one would be allocated some six acres of land for just sugar cane farming (sugar plots) and another 4-5 acres for residence, no longer holds.

In essence, the sugar settlement project, as mooted in the 60s, is dead. In those days, owning a sugar cane plot was a mark of status and a wealth symbol that those who did not have were considered poor without any future guarantee for wealth.

“Cane for us used to be what cattle is for the Maasai, it did not even matter what was the regular take home for it but when you had it, there was that comfort that you were rich. It was prestigious and schools listened to us when we mentioned the cane on our farms. Now, it’s all different,” said Mr Jactone Ojera, who has since cut cane farming by tens of acres and diversified to coffee farming.

Population pressure has since caused multiple land subdivisions whose result is the dwindling fortunes of sugar cane farming. This has eventually discouraged younger generations away from engaging in the crop whose sweetness has since faded.

ALTERNATIVE VENTURES

A closer look at the existing cane paints an even grimmer picture, thin and dry in most of the areas, yellowish and chocked by weed in other areas. It becomes even difficult to distinguish sugar cane and the Napier grass planted at their edges by dairy farmers in places like Kandege where farmers are trying their hand in alternative ventures.

One would imagine that Muhoroni Sugar Company, which boasts of some 17,000 acres of land meant to source for sugar cane, may present an alternative picture but wait until you get to see the nucleus.

The stunted cane and patches of empty land lines along bushy inroads into the miller’s strategic raw material source is a sad tale of cane farming looking south.

Chemelil Sugar Company has no better story, it’s nucleus is not fully under cane and the miller is struggling to get finances to hit a target of having at least 90 per cent of its 2,273 hectares of land planted with cane. The surrounding farmers, who supply 95 per cent of the cane crushed by Chemelil, have since scaled down and a ride on the damaged Muhoroni-Chemelil-Miwani road is enough testimony.

Young girls dot the roadside with a haul of dry cane bundled together to be used as firewood. The farms, from where they have fetched the now black stalks of what was once cane, are among those erasing their encounter with sugar cane in the fading glory of an agricultural cash crop many cherished in the years gone by.

SHARP DECLINE

The Kenya Yearbook of Statistics show a slow growth of sugar cane available for crushing between 2002 and 2009. Thereafter, there is a sharp decline before another sluggish recovery in 2011.

Farmers who spoke to Nation said they had either abandoned the crop or simply gave up tending to their farms after years of unpaid arrears from the local millers meant they could no longer support the crop whose capital requirements is not for shallow pockets.

The fall of cane farming can be traced back to a broken tradition where millers provided credit facilities for the farmers in form of input loans and services including fertiliser application and harvesting and farmers faithfully suppled the cane to the mills.

The farmers’ key role was to set the land aside and be a good husband to ensure the crops are well attended to until they are harvested. They would then take a painful cut on the first harvest which in many cases still left them with some significant take home and then enjoy the net three harvests by simply weeding and taking care of the cane. That no longer exists and there are many reasons to it depending on who you ask.

THREE HARVESTS

“The miller would give you support, then when the cane matures, they fail to harvest it. It dries up and you end up with the loan. When they harvest it late, you still end up with a loan to repay and if this is repeated through the three harvests, you are forever indebted to the miller. It leaves one with the feeling that that your land has just been misused,” said Mr Amolo Castile, a farmer based in Muhoroni.

The farmers’ past and present experience has worked to diminish hopes of those planning to venture into the trade, afraid that the bitterness beneath the juicy trade in the good old days is long gone.

The miller on the other hand is bogged down by weak financial muscle after years of intermittent operations and can hardly support the very farmers they heavily rely on for raw materials.

Apart from the suspension of the Sugar Development Levy which helped to support both the Kenya Sugar Research Foundation which informed the industry on new varieties and better cane growing practices, millers also blame farmers for defaulting on the input loans and later gaming the system in cane supply to avoid being deducted or sell the cane to the mushrooming private mills.

“We support farmers with input, land developing fertiliser seed cane and agricultural extension services. While some farmers have the ability to do grow cane on their own, it is capita intensive and we had always viewed it as an integral part of our activities to guarantee security of raw material supply until the poaching games began,” Mr Apollo Hongo, Sony Sugar Company Cane Production Manager told us.

LACK OF CANE

With cane-farming struggling under the weight of various other factors, millers can hardly keep running to capacity. The starts and stops only aggravate the problem by pilling the same debts to farmers whose feet have grown colder when it comes to growing sugar cane, once a sweet experience and a path to wealth.

This year alone, all the government-run mills, except for Sony Sugar, ceased operations for months due to lack of cane. The narrowing cane availability makes a key trigger to the poor predicament of government mills reeling from ageing machines and poor management.

Mumias Sugar, which has been a recipient of some Sh35 billion from the government, was this September seeking Sh2 billion to cater for its electricity bills after Kenya Power disconnected its supply. The miller can no longer sell even ethanol, which has been keeping it going.