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By Shaban Makokha
Busia, Kenya: To assess the devastating impact of unchecked sugar importations and sugarcane poaching on local farmers and millers, the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives has initiated a comprehensive fact-finding tour throughout Western Kenya and Nyanza.
This legislative investigation is happening during a pivotal moment for the nation’s sugar sector. Domestic processing plants face mounting challenges, including an influx of low-cost imported sugar, escalated production expenditures, cane poaching, insufficient agricultural inputs, commercial pressures, and ongoing anxieties surrounding the governance of sugar imports.
The committee’s itinerary includes sweeping field inspections across major regional hubs targeting Sony Sugar Ltd, Mumias Sugar Ltd, Butali Sugar Mills Ltd, Kibos Sugar Ltd, Busia Sugar, Nzoia Sugar Company and Muhoroni Sugar Ltd.
The legislators are seeking to establish how imported sugar is affecting local production, farmers’ earnings, factory operations, employment and the wider sugar value chain.
The committee, led by Chairman Bernard Shinali and Vice Chair Marianne Kitany, commenced its tour on September 16th, 2026, at South Nyanza Sugar Company (Sony Sugar) in Homa Bay County and Mumias Sugar Company in Kakamega.
The inquiry follows a series of interventions and alarms raised earlier in the year over the sugar industry, including concerns about diversion of industrial consignments, policy pushback, aggressive taxation and the impact of imports on domestic producers.
Speaking in Mumias, Mr. Shinali, who was accompanied by North Horr MP Waria Guyo and Masinga lawmaker Joshua Mbithi, said the committee was also investigating the movement of industrial sugar after tracking a consignment from the Port of Mombasa to Kisumu.
The committee is particularly concerned about fears that sugar intended for industrial use could be diverted, repackaged and eventually sold to unsuspecting retail consumers. The investigation, Shinali said, is intended to establish what happens to imported sugar once it enters the country and whether the system in place is strong enough to prevent diversion.
The issue has placed the sugar sector under renewed scrutiny, with millers insisting that legitimate industrial imports should not become a back door through which sugar meant for specific industrial purposes finds its way into the ordinary consumer market.
The Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives Committee was joined by its counterparts from the Kakamega County Assembly, led by Kisa West MCA Bernard Omboko, underscoring the growing concern over the impact of the sugar industry on the regional economy.
“We are here to look at how importation might have impacted on Mumias for the last three years,” said Mr. Shinali.
Adding “We want to know what the national assembly and the county assembly can do to make sugarcane farming favourable and profitable to both the farmer and millers.”
The chairman said Kenya must find a delicate balance between meeting the needs of industries that require imported raw sugar and ensuring that local farmers and millers are not pushed out of business.
“Local farmers need to be supported, especially with farm inputs, if we are to have effective sugar farming. I am going to ask the President to consider reducing the price of fertilizer and other farm inputs,” he added.
His remarks come as farmers continue to grapple with the rising cost of production, with fertiliser, labour, transport and other farm inputs eating into the returns from sugarcane.
For farmers, the sustainability of the industry begins in the field. For millers, it begins with a reliable supply of cane, efficient factory operations and a market capable of absorbing locally produced sugar.
When one part of the chain weakens, the consequences are felt across the entire industry.
Mumias Sugar’s Operations Manager Stephen Kihumba took the committee through the realities facing the mill, painting a picture of an industry where the challenges facing the farmer eventually find their way to the factory and where problems at the factory inevitably return to the farmer.
He told the Shinali-led team that high volumes of cheap imports are not only depressing market prices for locally manufactured sugar, but also affecting the wider sugar value chain.
“When imported sugar enters the market during periods when local mills are producing, it creates significant challenges for Mumias Sugar and other Kenyan factories and the wider sugar value chain,” said Mr. Kihumba.
For the miller, this means sugar can remain in warehouses for longer as the market struggles to absorb locally produced stocks. But for the farmer, the consequences can be even more personal.
When a miller struggles to sell its sugar, the pressure can eventually travel backwards through the value chain, affecting cash flow, cane procurement and the ability of factories to sustain operations.
And when farmers begin losing confidence in sugarcane, the consequences can be severe for an industry that supports thousands of households across Western Kenya.
“When local farmers cannot find a market for their crop, they end up uprooting the sugarcane from their fields, making it unsustainable for Kenyan factories to compete,” Mr. Kihumba said.
The statement captures the delicate relationship between the factory and the farmer. A weak factory threatens the farmer and a weak farmer threatens the factory. It is a cycle that has made the question of sugar imports particularly sensitive in Western Kenya. Local millers have actively demanded a stronger voice in regulatory decision-making.
They are pushing the State for stricter enforcement of the Sugar Act to completely lock out uncustomed sugar and shield local jobs and the domestic sugar market. Kihumba said the government must strengthen surveillance and traceability mechanisms to ensure imported sugar ends up where it is legally supposed to go.
He called for real-time monitoring of sugar imports, verification of declared end users and timely publication of information on the country’s sugar deficit.
“We are calling on the government to employ real time monitoring of sugar imports, follow up on verification of declared end users and maintain timely publicity of sugar deficits,” he added.
He also called for greater transparency, stronger traceability, objective import management and industrial sugar safeguards to control diversion of use. The miller further wants digital tracing of imported sugar to strengthen accountability across the supply chain.
Such measures, the industry argues, would allow the government to determine the country’s actual sugar requirements before approving imports and prevent situations where imports flood the market at the expense of local producers.
Mumias Sugar has maintained its seven-day payment arrangement for farmers, a system that has helped sustain confidence among cane growers supplying the mill. However, management is sceptical that slower movement of its sugar on the market due to cheap imports could put pressure on its cash flow and eventually affect its ability to sustain the payment plan.
For farmers, timely payment is not a luxury. It determines whether they can pay school fees, buy farm inputs, settle debts and prepare their next crop. Any disruption in the payment cycle can therefore have consequences far beyond the factory gates.
Mumias Sugar nevertheless acknowledged that imports may be necessary where there is a genuine domestic shortage. The company Chairman, Sarbjit Singh Rai said the issue was not about completely shutting the door on imports, but ensuring that importation responds to genuine market needs.
“Mumias does not engage in production of industrial sugar. We don’t import raw sugar for refining. But importation cannot be locked out because the local millers are not able to satisfy the country’s sugar demand,” said Mr. Rai.
His position highlights the difficult policy balance facing the government. Kenya cannot simply prohibit all imports while domestic factories remain unable to produce enough sugar to meet national consumption.
At the same time, excessive or poorly regulated imports could undermine farmers and millers who are capable of supplying part of that market. The challenge, therefore, is not simply whether Kenya should import sugar. It is when, how much, for what purpose and under what safeguards.
Kenya faces a persistent structural sugar deficit, producing roughly 551,800 to 650,000 metric tonnes domestically against annual consumption demand of about 1.25 million metric tonnes. This leaves an annual shortfall of between 400,000 and 600,000 metric tonnes, which is bridged through legal imports and regional COMESA quotas.
The figures demonstrate why imports remain part of Kenya’s sugar equation.
But they also raise another question: how can the country continue importing what it needs without weakening the very farmers and factories expected to increase domestic production?
For industry players, the answer lies in regulation. Importation is required where there is a genuine deficit, but it must be regulated, operated within the law and based on the actual available shortfall. The government must therefore establish the country’s sugar deficit accurately and transparently before allowing imports into the market.
The stakes for Mumias and the surrounding communities are particularly high. Mumias Sugar supports a large network of workers, farmers, transporters, traders and other businesses that depend directly or indirectly on the factory. The company has about 4,200 employees, including approximately 1,200 permanent workers and 2,800 contract employees.
Beyond the factory workforce, the mill has a direct relationship with about 3,600 sugarcane farmers. That means the future of the mill is not merely a corporate issue but a community concern because every job lost at the factory has the potential to affect a family.
At the heart of the parliamentary investigation is therefore the sugarcane farmer. The farmer is the first link in the value chain and, often, the most vulnerable. Unlike an importer who can move commodities between markets, a farmer cannot easily relocate a mature sugarcane crop when the market turns unfavourable. If farmers believe there is no reliable market for their cane, they may uproot it and shift to other crops.
That is the danger highlighted by Kihumba: a shrinking cane area means less raw material for factories and this would lead to reduced factory utilization, higher production costs and potentially fewer jobs.
The committee is also examining cane poaching, another problem that has troubled millers in the sugar-growing regions.
Factories invest in developing relationships with farmers, supporting cane production and planning their crushing operations around expected supplies. When mature cane is diverted to competing mills, the investment and planning of the original mill can be undermined. For farmers, cane poaching may offer immediate benefits if another mill promises quicker harvesting or more favourable terms.
But for the industry as a whole, unregulated competition for cane can destabilise production planning and deepen tensions between millers. The parliamentary inquiry therefore provides an opportunity to examine not only imports but the entire sugar value chain.
The committee’s visit comes with a central question: Can Kenya protect its sugar farmers and local industries while still ensuring that consumers and industries have access to enough sugar?
As Shinali observed, farmers cannot be expected to compete effectively when the cost of fertilizer and other inputs continues to weigh heavily on production.
“Local farmers need to be supported, especially with farm inputs,” he said.
The call for cheaper fertilizer therefore forms part of the larger conversation about making sugarcane farming commercially viable.
The parliamentary investigation has arrived at a defining moment for Western Kenya’s sugar industry. For years, the region has depended on sugarcane not simply as a crop but as an economic lifeline. From Mumias to Nzoia, Busia, Butali and across the sugar belt, thousands of families depend on the crop.
Factories provide employment, farmers provide cane, transporters move it, traders sell goods to workers, schools educate their children and communities grow around the industry.
But that ecosystem cannot survive indefinitely if one part of it is consistently weakened. Cheap imports can benefit consumers in the short term by increasing supply and potentially easing prices. But if poorly regulated imports undermine domestic production, Kenya could become
