SUGAR CANE

Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called on farmers in Msambweni district to embrace sugarcane farming to fight the high poverty levels in the area.

Speaking when he toured the Kwale International Sugar Company (Kiscol) cane nursery farm at Bondora, the PM lashed out at leaders who are opposed to investors setting base in their areas.

He took Msambweni MP, Omar Zonga, to task over persistent complaints against the investor.

Zonga, however, who accompanied the PM, said leaders were not opposed to the project, but only wanted squatters evicted from land they occupied to be duly compensated.

The PM said that he would take up the issue of compensation with relevant Government authorities, and urged locals to give investors a conducive environment to operate.

Raila said the Government supported the venture to revive cane farming in the Coast region.

"The first cane processing factory, the defunct Ramisi sugar plant, was set up here. And when it was operational, the economy was booming but after its collapse, poverty has set in," noted Raila. The former Ramisi Sugar factory collapsed in 1988.

Huge investment

The State gave Kiscol 15,000 hectares of land to revive cane farming and build a sugar processing plant in Ramisi in 2007.

"This is a huge investment which, once fully operational, will provide employment to locals and support a much better livelihood," Raila said.

He further cited the region’s climatic patterns, which he said favour cane growing.

"High temperature and humidity here enables sugar cane grown here to mature quicker than in the other zones in the country," Raila said.

The cane crushing plant will crush 3,000 metric tonnes of white milled sugar per day. However once fully operational, the plant with be crushing 5,000 metric tonnes of cane per day.

Two agriculture experts, and consultants with Kiscol, Jonathan Parkin, and Klaas Ooms told the PM that they expect to have the factory operational by August 2012.