By Abdulrahman Otenyo
Brazil teaches us a simple but profound lesson that in a modern sugarcane economy, sugar is not the main product but only one of many outputs. The real value lies in what we have long treated as “waste”, molasses and bagasse. Through science and biotechnology Brazil has turned these materials into ethanol, electricity, biogas, bio-plastics, fertilizers and industrial chemicals. Sugar is now just one income stream in a much larger system.
That is why Brazilian sugar can remain affordable. Their industry does not survive on sugar alone. It survives on diversification.
Kenya built the opposite model and it is slowly breaking under its own weight. Our entire sugar industry is almost propped up by sugar sales only. Molasses is neglected, underutilized or sold to local vendors for Chang’aa production. Bagasse is burned inefficiently or dumped; we have seen mountains of bagasse in almost every factory you visit. Factories struggle, farmers suffer, and government bailouts repeat themselves in endless cycles. This is not just poor management; it is a broken economic design because we are trying to run a multi-value crop as a single-product business.
- Every time bagasse is wasted, we lose clean energy and pollute the environment.
- Every time molasses is discarded, we lose fuel, chemicals, animal feed, fertilizer inputs, pharmaceutical alcohol and industrial raw materials.
- Every time a mill depends only on sugar prices, it becomes vulnerable to collapse.
This is why reform must go deeper than rescue packages and restructuring plans. We long for a shift in mindset and policy. We should stop treating sugarcane as just a food crop and start being recognized as a strategic industrial crop.
Sugar should no longer be the backbone of the industry, rather it should be one branch of a much larger tree.
And this is not theory. Kenya already has one living example of this thinking in practice.
Kibos Sugar & Allied Industries is currently the closest thing we have to a Brazilian-style bio-industrial sugar model. Unlike most mills, Kibos has deliberately invested in diversified value streams beyond sugar. It uses bagasse for power generation, converts waste streams such as; vinasse, boiler ash, and press mud into fertilizer, has invested in ethanol distillation, paper and packaging production, and built industrial linkages that treat sugarcane as an industrial feedstock, not just a food crop.
While other factories still operate as sugar-only mills, Kibos is evolving into a bio-industrial complex. Sugar is part of the business but not the business. Energy, materials, fertilizers, ethanol and industrial products form parallel value chains. This is exactly the structural logic that defines Brazil’s success.
Kibos proves one critical truth:
This model is possible in Kenya.
It is not foreign.
It is not unrealistic.
It is not theoretical.
It already exists just not at scale.
What this means in real life
For sustainability; Bagasse can power factories and supply renewable energy to the national grid just like how Mumias used to in their glory days.
Molasses can produce clean ethanol for fuel blending and industrial use.
Biogas systems can turn waste into energy while protecting rivers and ecosystems and in the process solving so many questions raised in Sustainable supply chain management such as in the case of Tana Delta Integrated Sugar Project. Nothing is dumped. Nothing is wasted. Everything feeds another system.
This creates a circular economy where pollution becomes production and waste becomes wealth.
For profitability; Mills stop living hand-to-mouth on sugar prices. Income comes from multiple streams:
- Ethanol and industrial alcohol
- Co-generation
- Carbon credits for green manufacturing
- Bio-fertilizers
- Livestock feed inputs
- Green industrial materials
Sugar factories become industrial complexes and not just mills.
Farmers gain stability because demand for their produce no longer depends on sugar alone.
The industry becomes resilient and sustainable instead of fragile as is the current situation.
For national prosperity; this model creates entirely new sectors: industrial biotechnology, green manufacturing, fermentation industries, enzyme production and renewable energy.
Sugar zones stop being poverty traps and become industrial growth corridors. Jobs expand for technicians, engineers, scientists and young graduates. Exports diversify, skills deepen and rural economies industrialize.
The policy shift Kenya needs
Kenya does not need more bailouts. It needs a new structure. A serious national framework must:
- Require molasses-to-ethanol industrialization
- Mandate bagasse-based cogeneration and grid integration
- Incentivize bio-refineries and fermentation industries
- Build PPPs in bioenergy infrastructure
- Invest in microbial and enzyme biotechnology research, this will also help with the multiplication of disease-free seed cane by use of tissue culture.
- Implement biofuel blending policies
- Integrate sugarcane bioenergy into carbon markets
- Redefine sugar mills as bio-industrial complexes just like Kibos and all other competitors across the globe
With the dissolution of the COMESA safeguards that have been protecting our industry for more than 24 years from cheap regional sugar imports, it is paramount that we rethink how we run about our business now more than ever.
With diversification, this is how sugar becomes affordable not through subsidies, but through diversified income.
This is how farmers become prosperous not through inflated prices, but through stronger value chains.
This is how sustainability becomes real not through regulation alone, but through smart industrial design.
Until Kenya stops seeing bagasse and molasses as waste and starts seeing them as wealth, the sugar industry will remain trapped in crisis cycles and poverty stricken sugarcane farming zones will continue to exist.
Brazil’s experience shows the truth clearly.
Kibos shows it is possible in Kenya.
A sugar-dependent sugarcane industry will always struggle.
A bio-industrial sugarcane economy creates wealth, resilience and power.
This is not just reform. It is a new dream for what sugar industry can mean for Kenya, not a problem to be rescued, not a sector to be subsidized, but a foundation for national transformation and growth.