He said that starting mid-April, farmers would not deliver sugarcane to the millers in protest of the cheap sugar.
Mr Juma said that the Comesa free trade protocol had allowed the country to import up to 350, 000 metric tonnes of sugar from member countries yet only less than half came in.
Sugarcane farmers have given the government a three-week ultimatum to stop the smuggling of sugar into the country or they stop delivering cane to millers.
They said that factories are unable to buy their cane because of huge volumes of unsold sugar.
“The government has totally failed us in curbing these illegal importations. We as growers will therefore ensure that our millers have no sugarcane to process,” said Mr Ibrahim Juma, the chairman of the Kenya Sugarcane Growers Association.
Key millers such as Chemelil, Muhoroni and Mumias are holding thousands of bags of unsold sugar in their stores, a situation attributed to lack of market due to flooding of the country with cheap imports.
The loss making Mumias Sugar which has been suffering from lack of sufficient cane due to cane poaching could suffer heavy losses if the stalemate is not resolved.
Mr Juma said that the Comesa free trade protocol had allowed the country to import up to 350,000 metric tonnes of sugar from member countries yet only less than half came in.
The rest he said, were illegal imports entering the country thanks to the loopholes.
“Even though the price of sugar on the Kenyan market was high and attractive in 2013, less than half of the sugar was imported from the member states,” said Mr Juma.
“This means that of the 237,600 metric tonnes imported, only 106,800 was from the Comesa trade region. This shows how serious smuggling is."
Mr Juma said that reports indicated that over 20,000 bags of cheap and illegal sugar enters the country every day with the beneficiaries being a few powerful individuals. nation.co.ke could not independently verify this figure.
He said that starting mid-April, farmers would not deliver sugarcane to the millers in protest of the cheap sugar.
At the same time Kesga secretary general Richard Ogendo criticised Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei’s move to sideline sugarcane growers in key discussions touching the industry.
According to Mr Ogendo, the cabinet secretary had for a long time denied the farmers a chance to hold dialogues together with the millers yet farmers were key producers of raw materials.
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