Senate Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Committee, under the leadership of Kirinyaga County Senator James Kamau Murango, MP, today held a  public participation to deliberate on the legislative proposal on the Sugar Bill, 2022, (National Assembly Bill No. 34). 

The Sugar Bill, 2022 sponsored by Hon. Emmanuel Wangwe, MP and co-sponsored by Bungoma County Sen. David Wakoli, MP, seeks to reinstate the Sugar Act which was repealed through the enactment of the Crops Act, 2013. The enactment of the Bill shall restore the roles of the Kenya Sugar Board currently undertaken by the Sugar Directorate of the Agriculture and Food Authority established under the Agriculture and Food Authority Act, 2013.

The Bill further provides for the development, regulation and promotion of the sugar industry, to provide for the establishment, powers and functions of the Kenya Sugar Board. 

The Sugarcane farmers from Kisumu County have strongly supported the restorationt of the Kenya Sugar Board and recommended that the Headquaters should be established the region.  within Nyanza or Western region to regulate the sector directly instead of operating through Agriculture and Food Authority. Stakeholders in the sugar sector said the Sugar Directorate under AFA Act 2013 lacked the autonomy to address challenges in the sugar industry.

This move is aimed at removing unhealthy competition amongst millers who have previously resorted to buying premature cane and which weighs less, resulting in low returns to the farmer.

''Farmers should be paid within seven days, and the millers within the region should make arrangements to  factor in paying farmers for the by products like molases and ethanol and power genaration.'' The Kenya National Federation of Sugarcane Farmers represantative said.  He further submitted that the Federation fully supports the Sugar Task Force report that was chaired by Hon. Wycliffe Oparanya which recommended  clustering  mills from three to four mills to form a region.

The CEC submitted that the only contemption that the farmers are facing in thre issue of zoning issue should be adressed in the Bill and the initial zone be reinstated in the Bill.

While supporting zoning, said that farmers should however be free to supply their cane to whichever mill they prefer, as long as they did not have a contract with another mill.

Kirinyaga County Senator James Kamau Murango, Bungoma County Senator David Wakoli, and Nominated Senator Beth Syengo,  Nyeri County Senator Wahome Wamatinga and Kisumu County Senator Tom Ojienda, SC, resolved to consider all recommendations and told famers that the Senate will fast-track the Bill to be enacted into law in  time to help address myriad challenges that have bedeviled the sugar sector.