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Kenya’s sugar production is projected to decline to between 600,000 metric tons and 650,000 metric tons in 2023, a decline from 700,000 metric tons recorded in 2022, a government official said Thursday.
Jude Chesire, director of the Sugar Directorate at the state-owned Agriculture and Food Authority, told Xinhua in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, that a shortage of mature sugar cane which is ideal for processing will impact domestic production this year.
“The ongoing heavy rains in the sugar belt will also negatively affect sugar production,” Chesire said on the sidelines of the sugar stakeholders’ forum.
She observed that Kenya’s consumption demand for household and industrial use is estimated at 1.1 million metric tons annually.
She noted that the East African nation is expected to bridge local sugar consumption demand through imports from outside the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) trading bloc which traditionally sells its surplus sugar to Kenya on a duty-free basis.
Chesire said that small-scale sugar farmers account for about 90 percent of Kenya’s sugar production. Enditem
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