Overview

Agriculture Department’s mandate entails development and maintenance of cane, harvesting and delivery of milling cane to the factory. Additionally, the department carries out maintenance of sugar roads. 

Functions

Developing and maintaining sugarcane within the Nucleus Estate and Outgrower fields

The Company has a Nucleus Estate of 2,779 hectares, maintained by Agriculture Department and out of which a total of 2,273 hectares is under cane. The Nucleus Estate annually supplies an average of 15% of cane crushed by the factory.

Agriculture Department also uses the Nucleus Estate through our Agronomy Section for adaptation field research on early maturing and high yielding cane varieties and trials on crop protection and nutrition.

An estimated total of 23,551 hectares of Outgrowers Farms are available in the Company’s sugarcane catchment zone for cane development. The Outgrowers Estate annually supplies 85% of cane crushed by the factory, supplied by 11,387 farmers within the in the Chemelil sugarcane catchment zone. Farmers within Chemelil Zone are drawn from the following two counties; Kisumu and Nandi.

It is advantageous to the Company that most Outgrower Estate farmers located in Chemelil zone have embraced cane farming and wholly developing their own fields.

Meanwhile, the Company’s Outgrowers Section offers technology transfer to our farmers.

Harvesting and transportation of seed cane and milling cane

The Company’s harvesting policy is to harvest green cane. And, all cane for delivery to the factory is harvested under a programmed developed by Agriculture Department in liaison with Harvesting & Transport Section. The harvesting programme is developed after getting a cane inventory from Outgrowers Section. We employ Block harvesting practice and harvested cane is delivered to the factory within 48 hours. Harvested cane should be mature fresh cane cut above the highest subterranean roots, well de-trashed, topped below the growing point level and devoid of the level of Extraneous Matter (EM).

The Company harvesting policy discourages supply of Burnt cane to the factory for crushing. However, cases of accidentally burnt cane may be considered as long as the harvested sugarcane has stayed in the Outgrwers fields for up-to a maximum of three days. The Company will not be held liable for losses that may arise from possible unscheduled cane fire.

Maintaining access roads to cane fields and residential estates

Agriculture Department is greatly dependant on a good sugar road network for efficient cane transportation to ensure the raw material reaches the factory on time, before deteriorating in quality.

Repair and Maintenance of (Class S) sugar roads is the responsibility of County Governments of Kisumu and Nandi, since the road network transverses the two counties.

Constituency Development Funds (CDF) committees of Tinderet and Muhoroni constituencies also undertake regular maintenance and repair of main sugar roads. The CDF committees carry out the stated sugar roads operations in conjunction with Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) and Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA), depending on the class of road being handled i.e. Class B,C,D and E.

Sugar Directorate (SD), currently domiciled under Agriculture & Food Authority (AFA) through Commodity Fund also funds sugar road projects, particularly bridges and drainage structures to shorten the distance for cane transportation, hence reduces cost of cane transport.

Repairing, servicing and maintaining Company fleet

This is the bedrock of any agricultural activity. Cane production and eventual sugar manufacture by the factory starts with proper land preparation. A good cane crop is achieved when land is properly prepared as per the standards. In Chemelil Cane Catchment Zone, there are two categories of soils, i.e. Heavy black-cotton soils found in the lowlands and the Light volcanic soils found along slopes of Nandi Hills Escarpment.

Mouldboard ploughing is recommended for the heavy soils at a depth of not less than 18 ”inches” deep. Followed by 1st and 2nd harrowing, depending on the tilth achieved. Good harrowing is achieved when the field is left to cure for 2-3 weeks, after ploughing.

In the light soils, Disc ploughing is done with subsequent harrowing until the right tilth is achieved. Furrowing is then done using a ridger, spaced between 1.2 to 1.5 meters at a minimum depth of 15’’ (inches). After this, the field will be ready for cane planting.

Interrow cultivation is also done using a ripper (sub-soiler) or disc-cultivation on the ratoon crop, using a tractor of at least 90Hp. Land preparation is done during the dry spell, using tractors of 100HP and above. In the Nucleus Estate, good results are always achieved when tractors of bigger horse power C150HP and above are used in some fields which are difficult to work on.

NB: Efforts are being made to lower the cost of sugar production coupled with checking the cost of land preparation. In this regard, minimum tillage is under trial by Agronomy Section. About 400 hectares of land is planned for opening up in the Nucleus Estate, annually.

Undertaking collaborative research on sugarcane

The Company, Agriculture Department is in a position to carry out furrow irrigation to cover an area of above 50Ha in the Nucleus Estate using treated factory effluent water for purposes of raising seed-cane nurseries, improving standards of crop husbandry to contribute to total crop (cane) output through improved yields.

Offering technology transfer to farmers

The mandate of Agriculture Department Field Workshop Section is to provide top professional and technical maintenance services to all Company mobile plants and machinery to ensure at the most possible maximum availability (out of the 120 plus assorted machines.) This is coupled with the responsibility of recovering machines broken down outside the Field Workshop. Some of these breakdowns occur several miles away from the Company.

Field Workshop work has been enriched by artisans such that at least 15% of the mechanics can work on all the Company machines. This has made the Field Workshop capable of repairing what the dealers classify as non-repairable machines and thereby producing multi-skilled technicians.

There are various Agricultural machines in the Company handled by the Field Workshop Section and they include Company passenger vehicles, light/heavy trucks, motorcycles, light engines, power generators, agricultural tractors and roads equipment.

The Section has also been on the frontline assisting our stakeholders’ i.e. Farmers and Transporters with provision of requisite knowledge as far as ownership and maintenance farm tractors are concerned.

Challenges

Major challenges affecting Agriculture Department are;

This is the bedrock of any agricultural activity. Cane production and eventual sugar manufacture by the factory starts with proper land preparation. A good cane crop is achieved when land is properly prepared as per the standards. In Chemelil Cane Catchment Zone, there are two categories of soils, i.e. Heavy black-cotton soils found in the lowlands and the Light volcanic soils found along slopes of Nandi Hills Escarpment.

Mouldboard ploughing is recommended for the heavy soils at a depth of not less than 18 ”inches” deep. Followed by 1st and 2nd harrowing, depending on the tilth achieved. Good harrowing is achieved when the field is left to cure for 2-3 weeks, after ploughing.

In the light soils, Disc ploughing is done with subsequent harrowing until the right tilth is achieved. Furrowing is then done using a ridger, spaced between 1.2 to 1.5 meters at a minimum depth of 15’’ (inches). After this, the field will be ready for cane planting.

Interrow cultivation is also done using a ripper (sub-soiler) or disc-cultivation on the ratoon crop, using a tractor of at least 90Hp. Land preparation is done during the dry spell, using tractors of 100HP and above. In the Nucleus Estate, good results are always achieved when tractors of bigger horse power C150HP and above are used in some fields which are difficult to work on.

NB: Efforts are being made to lower the cost of sugar production coupled with checking the cost of land preparation. In this regard, minimum tillage is under trial by Agronomy Section. About 400 hectares of land is planned for opening up in the Nucleus Estate, annually.

Undertaking collaborative research on sugarcane

The Company, Agriculture Department is in a position to carry out furrow irrigation to cover an area of above 50Ha in the Nucleus Estate using treated factory effluent water for purposes of raising seed-cane nurseries, improving standards of crop husbandry to contribute to total crop (cane) output through improved yields.

Offering technology transfer to farmers

The mandate of Agriculture Department Field Workshop Section is to provide top professional and technical maintenance services to all Company mobile plants and machinery to ensure at the most possible maximum availability (out of the 120 plus assorted machines.) This is coupled with the responsibility of recovering machines broken down outside the Field Workshop. Some of these breakdowns occur several miles away from the Company.

Field Workshop work has been enriched by artisans such that at least 15% of the mechanics can work on all the Company machines. This has made the Field Workshop capable of repairing what the dealers classify as non-repairable machines and thereby producing multi-skilled technicians.

There are various Agricultural machines in the Company handled by the Field Workshop Section and they include Company passenger vehicles, light/heavy trucks, motorcycles, light engines, power generators, agricultural tractors and roads equipment.

The Section has also been on the frontline assisting our stakeholders’ i.e. Farmers and Transporters with provision of requisite knowledge as far as ownership and maintenance farm tractors are concerned.

Challenges

Major challenges affecting Agriculture Department are;