Disgruntled farmers, zoning laws and the MINOR tiff between Butali and West Kenya

Sugarcane cutters harvest the plant on a plantation in western Kenya. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • Also, the Kenya Sugar Authority paper No 10 of 1973 estimated that the five operating factories — Miwani, Muhoroni, Chemelil, Ramisi and Mumias — would only manage to produce 245,000 tonnes of sugar by 1980.
  • But there was one problem with the projections; farmers were getting demoralised and some of them had turned to torching cane fields. The Kenya National Farmers Union, an umbrella farmers’ body, also protested to the government about the meager payments that sugar farmers were earning.

FACED WITH FAILURE IN THE SUGAR sector, the government, in November 1972, decided to declare sugarcane a special crop as technocrats at the regulatory body started to express doubts about the success of the industry. This meant that the contingent liability for any loss would not be met by the factories, but by the government, which was also to control the sugar price. The matter had first been taken to Parliament by Bruce McKenzie, the minister for Agriculture, in 1966. MPs from the sugar belt felt that the cane price had demoralised farmers, especially at the Muhoroni settlements.

According to McKenzie, the purpose of the scheduling was to protect farmers. “If a factory breaks down and sugar has been cut and there is no control price on the sugar, then the factories can virtually say: ‘Because we have not milled your cane, although you have sent it, we need not pay you for it’.”

The future of the sugar sector looked dim. At independence, Kenya consumed about 103,000 tonnes of milled white sugar, and only about 35,000 tonnes of this was produced locally, the remainder being imported. About 40,000 tonnes were imported from neighbouring Uganda and 30,000 tonnes from other sources. By this time, Kenya was consuming 200,000 tonnes of sugar, out of which 100,000 were imported. The Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that by 1980, the country would consume about 335,000 tonnes, with a deficit of 90,000.

LOSS-MAKING CROP

Also, the Kenya Sugar Authority paper No 10 of 1973 estimated that the five operating factories — Miwani, Muhoroni, Chemelil, Ramisi and Mumias — would only manage to produce 245,000 tonnes of sugar by 1980.

But there was one problem with the projections; farmers were getting demoralised and some of them had turned to torching cane fields. The Kenya National Farmers Union, an umbrella farmers’ body, also protested to the government about the meager payments that sugar farmers were earning.

“The present return per acre per year to the small scale settlement farmer is most disheartening,” they wrote. “Such a farmer would do better to abandon his plot and seek employment elsewhere. A bold decision is needed to boost the production of sugar, get the factories working to capacity and to make Kenya self-sufficient as soon as possible.”

Their worry was that farmers were getting little return after the factories deducted loans on ploughing, harrowing, seed, planting, weeding, harvesting, loading and transport.

At a Kenya Sugar Authority meeting in 1973, government officials started getting worried and “expressed doubt”, according to declassified minutes, that sugarcane farming would be sustained with the then cane price.

Chemelil, from the very start, was unable to cope with available cane, and this generated protests from farmers who had started burning cane fields. But while Chemelil was in surplus, Miwani and Muhoroni were operating at 50 per cent capacities. What emerged was that there was not enough cane in each factory zone, and KSA was given powers to come up with a formula that would benefit the factories. They decided to give factories their areas of operations (zones).

When the matter of zoning was put to Agriculture minister Jeremiah Nyagah, he accepted it on the morning of December 19, 1973.

Today, the zoning problem has emerged in the sugar sector, with different mills operating within the radius of each other and triggering sugar wars between Butali and West Kenya factories.