The Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture has assured sugarcane farmers of its commitment to fast-tracking the passage of the Sugar Bill 2022 to revive the ailing industry.
According to Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture Chairman Senator James Murango, President William Ruto is keen to assent to the Bill, and the Senate is doing everything it can to hasten the process.
“I want to confirm to you, once we finish this public participation, within 2 weeks, we shall have passed this Bill and sent it to the President to assent to it,” he said.
At a public hearing on the Bill held on Monday at Chemelil Sugar Company, farmers who spoke stressed the importance of incorporating a zoning clause to stop millers from harvesting cane that they did not develop.
According to Caleb Ochieng, a spokesperson of the Kenya National Federation of Sugarcane Farmers, the Bill benefits farmers and ought to be backed.
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According to Ochieng, the Bill proposes a number of initiatives targeted at updating the machinery and reviving the sector.
“Once the Bill is assented into law, we are going to see a lot of changes in our factories, why then should we have a free market for cane, we need zoning to confine millers into their jurisdictions,” he said.
Cane farmers from Kisumu, Nandi, and Kericho counties attended the public participation and overwhelmingly endorsed dividing the sugar-belt regions into zones and clusters.
The farmers contended that by making this change, their business will be managed more pragmatically.
Acting Management Director of Chemelil Sugar Factory Jacqueline Kotonya reaffirmed her complete support for zoning, pointing out that the plants already operating in the Nyando sugar belt have enough cane to meet their whole capacity.
“I am supporting zoning, we have around 6 millers in this zone, we will harvest cane within us and there is enough for all of us,” she said.
Among other proposals, the Sugar Bill 2022 seeks to establish a sugar board to manage sugar affairs solely in the country instead of generalizing the sugar sub-sector under the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA).
The farmers have told the Senate Committee to borrow heavily from the report prepared by former Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya and former agriculture cabinet secretary Mwangi Kinjuri in 2019.
The Bill also proposes the establishment of a Sugar Arbitration Tribunal to arbitrate disputes. The tribunal will be headed by a person qualified to be a High Court Judge.
