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{
    "id": 1476527,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1476527/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 78,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "THAT, aware that commercial sugarcane production in Kenya was introduced in the early years of independence with an aim of eliminating dependence on sugar importation and contributing to economic transformation in the sugar belt and the country at large through agriculture; acknowledging that, at its pinnacle, the sugar industry significantly contributed to the country’s National Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and became one of the largest employers which supported livelihoods of many Kenyans both directly and indirectly; concerned that over the last 25 years sugarcane farming particularly in Western Kenya has been declining significantly thereby dipping sugar production from over 600,000 metric tonnes per year in the 1990s to less than 300,000 metric tonnes in recent years; noting that the decline in sugarcane farming has forced local millers to operate far below their milling capacities and pushed the country to over-rely on net importation of sugar, which negatively impacts on the balance of trade; noting that the decline in sugar production is attributable to factors such as mismanagement, interference and unfair competition from cheap imported sugar; further concerned that state-owned sugar millers like Mumias Sugar Company and Nzoia Sugar Company ceased milling while owing farmers hundreds of millions of shillings; appreciating that the government has been putting in place strategies, policies and regulations to define roles of millers and major players and stakeholders in the sugar industry in a bid to revamp the sector; concerned that the acute shortage of sugarcane resulting from mass abandonment of sugarcane farming continues to roll back initiatives for reviving sugar milling; recognizing that further investment in revamping sugar companies before reviving sugarcane farming would occasion loss of the invested public funds instead of yielding success; now, therefore, this House resolves that the national government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, reviews the sugar development policies to provide that every investor-miller sets aside definite funds for the development of sugarcane farming, incentivizing farmers to embrace sugarcane growing and to enhance cane production in each of the respective zones."
}