By Abdulrahman Otenyo
Confronting Kenya’s Land Ownership Crisis across the Sugar Industry
Land in Kenya’s sugar belt is more than an economic asset. It is inheritance, identity and property for millions of rural families. From the cane fields of Western Kenya, to the plains of the Great Rift Valley and to the irrigated estates of the Tana Delta sugarcane farming rests on land systems that are increasingly strained. These challenges are not confined to just one area, they run through the entire sugar industry shaping productivity, farmer incomes, mill efficiency and even the national food basket.
At its core, Kenya’s sugar crisis is not only about mill inefficiencies or cheap imports. It is also about land; how it is owned, subdivided, leased, controlled and sometimes contested.
A historical foundation that still shapes today
The roots of today’s land challenges stretch back to the colonial era and policies such as the Swynnerton Plan. Land that was once managed communally was consolidated and titled individually in the name of “modernization.” Even though this plan was intended to promote commercial farming of the native Kenyan cash crops, it disrupted traditional systems of communal land ownership and laid the groundwork for land inequality and fragmentation.
Post-independence, reform efforts have continued, and the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 promised equity, transparency and protection of community land breeding hope among many Kenyans with history of land injustices. However, farmers are still grappling with unclear title deeds, succession disputes and leasing disagreements that make it difficult to use their land confidently and effectively especially when seeking credit or entering into official contracts with millers and/or other land users.
Sugarcane is a crop that needs long-term planning often 18 to 24 months from planting to harvest, uncertainty over land rights discourages investment and dwindles confidence among potential investors.
Fragmentation: A national crisis
In many parts of the country, Western Kenya in particular, generational subdivision has minimized once-viable cane farms into uneconomical parcels. Each inheritance cycle reducing acreage, making mechanization unimaginable thus lowering productivity and nullifying the strength of economies of scale.
Sugarcane thrives on scale. Small, scattered and ever diminishing pieces of land proliferate production costs by making harvesting and transportation logistics difficult and sometimes impossible due to trespassing cased experienced across the sugar growing areas. Mills that are already struggling with cane shortages are forced to explore far off supply zones raising transport costs hence further squeezing profit margins.
This pattern is not merely statistical, it reflects families trying to balance cultural inheritance traditions with economic survival.
The vulnerability of informal leasing
As landholdings shrink and ownership patterns change, leasing has become common across Kenya’s sugar zones. In many parts of the country, farmers cultivate land that they do not formally own but through leasing. Unfortunately, leasing arrangements are more often than not informal, undocumented and/or poorly structured.
This leaves room for one of the most disruptive practices in cane-growing areas known as double leasing.
A case example: The double leasing trap
Consider a scenario common in parts of Kakamega and Migori. A landowner leases two acres to a ‘Wesonga’ for sugarcane cultivation under a verbal agreement. Wesonga clears the land, buys seed cane, applies fertilizer and nurtures the crop for a year or so.
At some point through the crop cycle, the landowner, stressed by financial needs or enticed by a better deal quietly leases the same piece of land to ‘Otieno’. Otieno registers as a cane supplier to certain a miller different from Wesonga’s miller or even the same miller.
When harvest approaches, conflict erupts. Both farmers claim rights to the cane. The miller and/or millers face legal uncertainty. Harvesting is delayed or sometimes harvested prematurely by either farmer in fear of losing out altogether. The crop over ripens or stales in cases of delays thus affecting the whole supply chain.
The absence of formal, registered lease agreements makes enforcement difficult or impossible and what started as trust-based cooperation ends in bitterness and economic loss.
Conversion pressures and shrinking cane zones
Agricultural lands across sugar-growing zones face scare from urbanization and real estate expansion. In areas like Miwani in Kisumu and Nasewa in Busia (formerly known as BOCCO, now flagged as a special economic zone) cane land is increasingly converted into residential or commercial usage.
While landowners have the right to sell, unregulated conversion reduces the national cane base. Most mills in the country have all been struggling at different times with inadequate cane supply a challenge intensified by land fragmentation and diversion.
The result is a vicious cycle of mills operating below capacity and delays in farmer payments, leading to more farmers either selling their land or abandoning cane farming altogether.
Power imbalance and contract insecurity
Land ownership challenges are compounded by unequal bargaining power between smallholder farmers and millers. Many growers sign complex cane supply agreements tied to their land parcels. When land disputes arise whether due to succession conflicts, leasing disputes or double allocation farmers risk breaching contracts through no fault of their own.
Without strong enforcement mechanisms and transparent contract standards, farmers often feel exposed. The individual landholder stands at the intersection of inheritance law, commercial contracts and market volatility often without legal support.
Potential Remedies for the Entire Sugar Sector
Addressing land ownership challenges requires more than technical reforms because it cries for the restoration of confidence and fairness. Hereunder listed are possible solutions to our land ownership menace;
Stronger land tenure security is essential through transparent succession processes, affordable local dispute resolution channels, streamlined land administrations and reduce bureaucratic delays.
Lease agreements should be formalized in simple, affordable formats accessible at ward or county level. This does not replace trust it protects it.
We should endeavor to sensitize, promote and encourage voluntary land consolidation or cooperative farming models so as to allow families for pooling the already diminishing plots for economies of scale but still retaining ownership rights. This would support mechanization and improve yields without erasing inheritance traditions. This will also address the difficulties experienced during harvesting and transporting with issues of trespassing and boundary conflicts.
Counties must also strengthen zoning protections for prime agricultural land. Development is important, but not at the cost of dismantling the very economic foundation of the cane growing regions.
Farmer sensitization and enlightenment is equally important.
Finally, product diversification is the way to go. Sugarcane has defined sugarcane growing zones for decades, but resilience and sustainability requires complementary income streams such as intercropping, livestock integration, and many other value-added agricultural ventures and practices.
Conclusion
Kenya’s sugar industry supports hundreds of thousands of farmers and workers. When land systems are insecure, the entire value chain weakens from farm, to factory and to national supply.
Land is the foundation of sugar production. Without secure, transparent and fair land governance, efforts to revive sugar mills or attract investment will remain fragile.
The future of Kenya’s sugar industry will not be secured by machinery alone. It will depend on whether farmers can plant cane on land they trust is truly theirs, protected from fragmentation, double leasing, arbitrary conversion and exploitative arrangements.
Land reform, therefore, is not a side issue in the sugar debate. It is the starting point.