NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 13 – Sugarcane deliveries to factories more than doubled in December last year after the government lifted the harvest ban on immature canes.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that farmers supplied 610,000 tonnes of raw sugarcane to millers, up from 296,170 tonnes in November 2023.
Midway through last year, the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) closed sugar factories in Nyanza and Western regions amid a shortage of cane.
The five-month ban was, however, lifted in November, with milling in factories starting in December last year.
“Cane deliveries more than doubled from 296.2 thousand metric tonnes in November 2023 to 610.0 thousand metric tonnes in December 2023, as presented in Table 8,” read the KNBS report.
Sugar prices in Kenya have risen in recent years, with a kilo costing more than Sh200, beyond what many Kenyans can afford.
Between January and September last year, for instance, the country produced 373,000 tonnes of sugar against a projected amount of 450,000 tonnes.
