Agriculture

Over 10,000 ha of the Sweetest Green Estate

On the Map

Kakira

Latitude - 0° 30' North

Longitude - 33° 17' East

Kakira is about 106 km east of Kampala, the capital city of the Republic of Uganda. Located in the district of Jinja, Kakira lies on the northern shores of Lake Victoria. Scattered hills make up the landscape - with the highest being 1,279m above sea level.

Geared up for Increased Production

The Kakira Nucleus Estate has almost 10,000 ha under cane cultivation and provides 35% of the factory's cane requirements. More than 7,000 out-grower farmers cultivate the additional 19,000 ha and supply the rest.

In Uganda, in the last 10 years, the consumption of sugar has doubled to 240,000 TS per annum. With the encouragement of the Government of Uganda, Kakira has expanded the crushing capacity in phases and this process will continue - a process that started in 2002/03.

In the 2009, the factory milled 1.6 million tonnes of sugarcane and produced 152,623 tonnes of sugar. The target for the year 2010 is to mill 1.8 million tonnes of sugarcane and produce 156,244 tonnes of sugar.

The table below shows the number of farmers, area cultivated, and quantity of cane supplied for 1990-1991 to 2009-2010 and the plan up to 2012-2013.

Staying at the Forefront

Research at Kakira Sugar

The KSL Research & Development Department is active in various trials and experiments in the field, including:

• Weedicide Trials.
• Fertiliser Trials.
• Spacing Trials.
• Cane Varietal Trials.
• Analysis of nutrient status in cane and soils.

In addition to a cane laboratory, the Company has a Weather Station that records all weather parameters for better and effective planning of cane cultivation.

Sugarcane varieties play a vital role in economic viability of the sugar industry. Some of the existing varieties have been in cultivation for over 50 years and have lost genetic potential in the cane and sugar yield.

Realising that there was a need to import sugar-rich varieties of cane, in 1999 the company started importing new varieties of sugar cane from CIRAD in Montpellier, France. So far, 231 varieties have been imported.

Furthermore, the East African Sugar industry is collaborating with the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and the International Sugar Organisation (ISO) to import an additional 500 new sugar cane varieties beginning in 2009.

The KSL Research and Development section of the Agricultural Department is actively involved in conducting location specific, mill-based, commercial trials in the fields to develop sugarcane crop production technologies to improve cane and sugar yields both on the estate as well as in the Out grower farmers’ fields. Studies and trials are focusing on the following technical areas:

• Land preparation
• Variety importation and screening: Varieties play a vital role in the economic viability in the sugar industry. The existing commercial varieties have been in commercial cultivation for the last 50 years and have lost much of their genetic potential; hence there was a need to import new sugarcane varieties for screening before commercial release if a variety has high cane and sugar yields. So far 467 varieties have been imported from CIRAD, Montpellier, France. In addition, an additional 500 new sugarcane varieties under the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and International Sugar Organization (ISO), East African Sugar Cane Improvement Project are being imported since 2009.
• Integrated weed management
• Integrated nutrient management: For sustainable soil fertility.
• Ratoon cane management
• Integrated pest and disease management: To keep the pest and disease incidence at threshold level.
• Pre-harvest cane maturity survey: From the estate and Out growers fields.
• Soil and plant analysis: To study the nutrient status of soils and plants
• Ratoon stunting disease determination (RSD)
• Seed cane treatment: For production of disease free healthy seed cane
• Maintenance and data recording: For better planning of cane cultivation and interpretation of the weather data for cane yield and sugar recovery.
• Transfer of sugarcane crop production technologies: By conducting on-farm demonstration trials, farmers’ meetings and issuing extension training pamphlets.
• Organizing training programmes: For Estate and Outgrowers field staff for capacity building.

Trials will continue until KSL achieves satisfactory results.