It is reported by Business Daily.

Seal Sugar Mill says it is looking for a green light from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) to build the factory in Alego Usonga sub county, which is suitable for sugar cane production.

It will be the first major agricultural project five years after American-owned rice farm Dominion closed shop in Siaya nine months after its American founder, Calvin Burgess, accused the area's leaders of extortion.

A Kisumu businessman and owner of Foam Mattresses Limited had separately in 2017 announced plans to build a Sh940 million sugar factory in Siaya County but the South Gem Sugar Factory in Kanyilaji village is yet to be operational.

Once complete the new sugar factory will have an initial milling capacity of 1250 tonnes of cane per day (TCD) to be expanded to 2,500 tonnes of canes per day in future. It will also produce three megawatts of renewable energy.

«Seal Sugar Mill Ltd will use fresh bagasse to produce about 3 MW of power at its station. However, the power station will only be able to utilise a fraction of the fresh bagasse daily out of the quantities produced from crushing of cane per day», — the firm said.

Plans for the new sugar factory come at a time when the industry is suffering from low cane production, high costs and stiff competition from cheap sugar imports.

The shortage of raw material has hit struggling State sugar millers particularly hard.

Kenya produces about 600,000 tonnes of sugar a year, compared with annual consumption of 800,000 tonnes.