Kenya is about to run into a serious sugar shortage in the next few weeks due to a shortfall in production.
Millers are reporting that they are facing a shortage of sugarcane, thus hindering sugarcane production.
Sugar is a key part of your daily bread. Well, you might want to start considering an alternative at least for a while.
The sugar industry is currently facing a cane shortage meaning that soon sugar will not be available in the shop and the little available will be more expensive.
A report on sugar status by the sugar directorate indicate that there will be a shortage of 1.9million tonnes of sugar cane in the 2016-2017 fiscal year creating a huge deficit of raw materials to mill.
All millers are currently crushing below their installed capacity as the shortage of canes continue.
Nzoia Sugar Company, for instance, is operating at below 2000 tonnes of canes per day against an installed capacity of 3000 tonnes.The case is the same for Sony Sugar.
Reports indicate that Mumias Sugar had projected a cane availability of 917,141 tonnes of cane between July and June 2016 and they only managed 91,260 tonnes leaving the miller to operate at below 30 per cent of its capacity.
Mumias Sugar has perhaps suffered the greatest impact of cane shortage as farmers transitioned out of cane production.
By December 2016, the volume of cane crushed at the mill had dropped by 45 per cent, resulting in the quantity of sugar produced to drop by 67 per cent.
The directorate is blaming the millers for the shortage for failing to do proper cane development. Kenya annual sugar consumption is estimated at 800,000 tonnes, but the production often falls short by at least 200,000 tonnes.The deficit is usually imported.
Some millers have been reported to be harvesting immature canes in order to remain in production, but it doesn’t seem to be helping because by last week sugar stalks in the country had dropped by 35 per cent to just 6500 tonnes which is below the national requirement of a minimum 9000 tonnes at any given moment.
Already prices have been soaring in the market, where a 2kg packet goes at ksh290.