As of today, there are about 3,500 outgrowers covering 163 villages in Kikuube and Hoima districts. According to Rajasekaran Ramaddu, the agriculture manager of Hoima Sugar Ltd, 65 per cent of the sugarcane processed by the company comes from the outgrowers, who are using a total of 8,000 hectares with each hectare producing 95 tonnes of sugarcane.
The company caters for the planting, weeding and transportation of the harvested sugarcane to the factory. Patrick Kyaligonza, an outgrower, says the money earned from sugarcane has transformed their livelihoods.
Currently, the company pays Shs 95,000 for a tonne of sugarcane and overall, Hoima Sugar forks out Shs 1 billion monthly to its workers. So, since most of them are locals, this money definitely circulates in the community.
INDIVIDUAL BENEFITS
Jimmy Byonabye, the LC-I chairman of Kiswaza village, says that when the company had just started out and approached residents to be outgrowers, he was among those who at first dismissed the idea thinking it was a trick to take away their land. But after witnessing how much money his peers who had accepted to be outgrowers were making, he had a change in mind.
“I was growing rice but the output was very low because out of an acre, I could only manage to get six 50kg sacks,” he says. “The money was not enough to meet my family needs. When I saw the amount of money the sugarcane outgrowers were getting, I also decided to join them.”
Byonabye, who now has almost seven acres of sugarcane, says he has been able to build a bungalow that befits an LC-I chairperson as well as rentals that bring in extra cash, all from the money he gets from selling his sugarcane to the company.
Justus Birungi, the outgrowers’ spokesperson under their umbrella Hoima Sugar Ltd Outgrowers Association, says he became an outgrower immediately the company started extended its operations five years ago and out of the 120 acres of his land, sugarcane occupies 85 acres.
He further intimated that he earns about Shs 90 million per sugarcane harvest.
“The first thing I did with the money was lending it out to my children so that they can start their own businesses because right now, getting employment is hard; so, I am happy that they used it well and all of them are now managing their own businesses,” Birungi says.
During the tour, Birungi took us around his soon-to-be-finished guesthouse in the fast-growing Kiziranfumbi trading centre, which he says has cost him about Shs 200 million, which money is mainly from the sugarcane he sells to Hoima Sugar Ltd. He has also been able to purchase more land to increase on his farming activities and grow other crops like maize, rice and cocoa.
COMMUNITY BENEFITS
With the extension of electricity in Kiziranfumbi and the improvement of the infrastructure, several businesses have propped up, leading to the establishment of Kiswaza trading centre. Buildings housing shops, boutiques, video halls, mobile banking as well as food kiosks and fuel pumps have all been set up in the fast-growing trading center.
As of last year, Hoima Sugar Ltd had constructed 47 roads in the district. Byonabye says that in times of community gatherings like burials and last funeral rites, the community no longer has to worry about clean water because Hoima Sugar Ltd has ensured it is provided freely to the residents.
He adds that the company also provides feeding to the 360 pupils in Kiswaza primary school. It is worth noting that Kiswaza village does not have a government health centre but Hoima Sugar Ltd has for each of the past five years organized health camps for villagers to meet with doctors and health specialists for treatment at no cost.
However, Ramaddu notes that the company plans to set up a modern health facility in the area. During this Covid-19 lockdown, they donated sanitizers, jerrycans, water tanks and fuel to the district Covid-19 task force to help curb the spread of the pandemic in the district.
ALL IS NOT WELL
In spite of the benefits of the sugar factory, there are still some grievances, especially on the side of the outgrowers. Initially, the company used to buy a tonne of sugarcanes at Shs 130,000 but this has been reducing over time up to the current Shs 95,000. The situation has been made worse by the recent delays in payments.
“Our contract says that we are supposed to be paid 90 per cent of our money within 60 days of the harvest and 100 per cent within 90 days but recently, the payments are taking longer than expected,” said Birungi, an outgrower.
There is also delayed transportation of the sugarcane from the gardens to the factory, which makes it lose weight and in turn reduces our earnings. “Sugarcane is supposed to remain in the garden for at most 36 hours but most of the times the transporters take long to pick them. Sometimes we are even forced to pay extra fee to company transporters so that they pick it up early,” said Mbabazi, another outgrower.
Though the company pledged to cater for planting, weeding and transportation of the sugarcane, some farmers intimated to The Observer that even when they do some of this work, the company still deducts those costs, something they find unfair.
However, Sheila Nduhukire, the lead strategist at Outcome Communications which speaks for Hoima Sugar Limited, says the payment delay was only an operational issue during a maintenance period last year for around a month. “It has since been corrected. About the pricing, sugarcane prices came down countrywide as a result of a drop in the price of sugar. It was a sector wise problem,” she notes.
“Meanwhile, the issue of the cane staying 36 hours is also exceptional in case of heavy rain that makes some roads impassable. Apart from that, we are the fastest factory in terms of moving sugarcane from field to factory.”
LOOKING AHEAD
As the LC-I chairperson, Byonabye says a police post is now needed in the area to maintain security due to the growing population. “The nearest police post is at Kiziranfumbi which is four miles from our village and the few available ones are mainly for guarding the factory. Therefore, we need our own police officers as a community.”
He adds that he has also requested the company to help in repairing of faulty boreholes in the area so that the residents can have access to safe clean water at all times on top of the one they provide to them during burials and other functions.
Richard Tabaaro Amooti, the resident district commissioner (RDC) of Kikuube, says the district council requested the company to help them in setting up a police post in Kiswaza village to which they agreed and gave them two options of either the district to buy a plot of land in the area where the police post will be set up or renting a building for accommodating the police post and the company will facilitate the officers’ needs. A decision by the District Council is yet to be made.
Tabaaro further notes that the government has agreed with the company to set up a health centre, a fully-fledged secondary school and further develop the trading centre for the people of Kiswaza. They are also thinking about requesting the company to change its name from Hoima Sugar to Kikuube Sugar since it was named when Kikuube was not yet a district of its own.
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