By SHABAN MAKOKHA
September 17, 2026| For months, sugarcane farmers in Western Kenya have watched their crop ripen in the fields, waiting for the day it will be harvested and delivered to the mill. But behind the green fields and towering stalks lies a growing anxiety: what happens when the sugar they produce meets a market already crowded with imports?
That question took centre stage in Mumias on Wednesday as Parliament launched a major fact-finding mission into the challenges confronting Kenya’s sugar industry, with uncontrolled imports and cane poaching emerging as key threats to local farmers and millers.
The National Assembly Departmental Committee on Trade, Industry and Cooperatives began its tour of sugar-producing areas in Nyanza and Western Kenya on September 16, visiting South Nyanza Sugar Company (Sony Sugar) in Homa Bay travelling to Mumias Sugar (2021) Company in Kakamega.
The parliamentary team, co-led by Vice-Chairperson Marianne Kitany and Ikolomoni MP Bernard Shinali, is expected to inspect operations at major sugar companies including Sony Sugar, Mumias Sugar, Butali Sugar Mills, Kibos Sugar, Busia Sugar, Nzoia Sugar Company and Muhoroni Sugar.
At Mumias, the inquiry quickly moved beyond factory gates. It became a story about farmers, workers, transporters, traders and thousands of families whose livelihoods are tied to the fortunes of the sugar industry.
Mumias Sugar Operations Manager Stephen Kihumba told the committee that large volumes of imported sugar entering the Kenyan market during local production periods place locally manufactured sugar under intense pressure.
“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 Kihumba.
For a miller, the problem is measured in warehouses filled with unsold sugar. For the farmer, the consequences begin in the field.
When factories struggle to move their stocks, their ability to maintain steady cash flows comes under pressure. That, in turn, affects the relationship between mills and growers, investment in cane development and the incentives farmers have to keep planting sugarcane.
The company told the committee that imported sugar competes with locally produced sugar for the same distributors, wholesalers, retailers and consumers. If local stocks remain in warehouses for longer, mills may be forced to slow production or reduce operations because of weaker market absorption.
And when the factory slows, the shock travels backwards. It reaches the cane cutter, the tractor operator, the transporter, the loading contractor, the agro-input supplier and, ultimately, the farmer. It is a chain in which one weak link can shake an entire rural economy.
Mumias Sugar’s management said the company currently supports about 3,600 farmers and employs about 4,200 people, including approximately 1,200 permanent workers and 2,800 contract workers. Around the factory are thousands more whose livelihoods depend indirectly on its operations.
For them, the sugar industry is not merely an economic statistic. It is a business surviving from one harvesting season to the next—and the future of families that have cultivated sugarcane for generations.
The parliamentary inquiry comes at a time when Kenya continues to grapple with a structural sugar deficit. Domestic production has generally remained below national consumption requirements, meaning the country relies on imports to bridge the gap.
Mumias Sugar told the committee that Kenya requires roughly 1.2 million to 1.25 million metric tonnes of sugar annually, while domestic production can fall substantially below that level. The resulting deficit must be addressed through imports.
This presents policymakers with a difficult balancing act: on one side are consumers and industries that require adequate sugar supplies; on the other are local farmers and millers who need a predictable market in which to sell what they produce.
Mr Shinali said the committee was seeking to understand how imports had affected Mumias over the past three years and what Parliament and county governments could do to make sugarcane farming more favourable and profitable.
“We are here to look at how importation might have impacted on Mumias for the last three years,” said Shinali. “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 Ikolomani MP said Kenya must find a balance between meeting the requirements of industries that depend on imported raw sugar and protecting domestic farmers and manufacturers.
“Local farmers need to be supported, especially with farm inputs, if we are to have effective sugar farming. We shall have a conversation with the President on how to reduce the price of fertiliser and other farm inputs,” he said.
The committee’s visit was also joined by Kakamega County Assembly members led by Kisa West MCA Bernard Omboko. Shinali was accompanied by North Horr MP Waria Guyo and Masinga MP Joshua Mbithi.
One of the most sensitive issues raised during the inquiry was the movement of a 27-metric-tonne consignment of raw industrial sugar. Shinali said the committee had been following the consignment from the Port of Mombasa to Kisumu amid concerns that industrial sugar intended for specific uses could be diverted, repackaged and sold to unsuspecting consumers as ordinary table sugar. The issue has renewed calls for stronger monitoring and traceability of sugar imports.
Mumias Sugar said it does not manufacture industrial sugar and does not import raw sugar for refining. Company chairman Sarbjit Singh Rai nevertheless acknowledged that imports cannot simply be stopped because Kenya’s domestic mills do not currently produce enough sugar to satisfy national demand.
“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 Rai.
The concern, he said, was therefore not simply whether Kenya should import sugar, but how much should be imported, when it should be imported, where it should go and whether the declared end use is respected.
Kihumba called for real-time monitoring of sugar imports, verification of declared end users and timely publication of information on the country’s sugar deficit.
“When local farmers cannot find a market for their crop, they end up uprooting sugarcane from their fields, making it unsustainable for Kenyan factories to compete,” he said. He called for greater transparency, stronger traceability, objective import management and safeguards for industrial sugar to prevent diversion.
Few images capture the crisis facing the industry more powerfully than a farmer uprooting sugarcane. Farmers invest in land preparation, planting material, fertiliser, labour and transport before they can earn anything. The crop takes months to mature—when the market fails them, that investment is placed at risk. A farmer who loses confidence in sugarcane may eventually turn to another crop. When thousands do the same, factories struggle to secure enough cane.
That is the paradox confronting Kenya’s sugar industry: the country wants to produce more sugar locally, but farmers need confidence that there will be a market for their crop.
Mumias Sugar said the mill has maintained a seven-day payment arrangement for farmers but warned that slow movement of sugar on the market could put pressure on its cash flow and threaten the sustainability of such arrangements. Cash flow, therefore, becomes more than an accounting issue. It determines whether a farmer is paid on time, whether a mill can continue investing in cane development, whether workers retain their jobs and whether businesses surrounding the factory continue operating.
Kihumba told the committee that Mumias Sugar factory has an installed crushing capacity of about 8,500 tonnes of cane per day, making it one of the largest sugar factories in the country. So far this year, the company said it had crushed 644,577 metric tonnes of cane.
Management also reported that cane availability has been improving, with production increasing over time. The company has supported farmers with interventions aimed at increasing cane production and reducing the cost burden on growers, including additional tractors for land preparation at subsidised rates.
The company reported the current sugar price at about Sh6,000 for a 50-kilogramme bag, while the cane price was calculated at Sh4,973 per tonne, according to figures presented to the committee.
But even with improving cane production, the market remains crucial. Unless the finished sugar finds a market, the entire chain remains vulnerable.
Kenya’s long-term ambition of reducing dependence on imported sugar will require more than restrictions at the border. It will require competitive farmers, efficient factories, reliable markets and predictable regulation. Regulators need the capacity to distinguish between legitimate imports and consignments diverted from their declared purpose.
The Finance Act 2026 also introduced higher excise duties on imported sugar as part of measures aimed at supporting domestic production and reducing dependence on foreign supplies.
The industry must also address productivity, the cost of farm inputs, cane development, factory efficiency, market access, payment systems and import governance. The parliamentary inquiry now provides an opportunity for those questions to be examined against evidence from the factories and farms themselves.
For Mumias, the message to Parliament was clear: imports may be necessary when Kenya faces a genuine shortage. But when local farmers and factories have the capacity to supply the market, uncontrolled imports can undermine that capacity.