By James Bwire
Engineer Nicolas Gumbo, Chairman of the Kenya Sugar Board, ignited a firestorm of hope at Vitican City Resort in Upanda Village, Sigomre sub-location, East Uholo location, Sigomre ward, Ugunja constituency, convening the Northern Siaya Sugarcane Farmers Association and stakeholders from Ugunja and Ugenya subcounties in a consultative masterclass that redefined rural empowerment—and exemplifies the extraordinary tenure he’s forged at the Board’s helm. No perfunctory handshake here—this was a surgical strike against the sugar industry’s rot, where cane farmers, mill barons, truckers, and ward elders dissected payment chicanery, smuggling epidemics, and infrastructural sabotage in a heartland where sugarcane isn’t crop but covenant. Under Gumbo’s astute guidance, such forums have become his signature, steadily recovering vast sums in long-overdue farmer payments and dramatically shortening chronic delays that once left families destitute for months on end. Kenya’s sugar colossus employs multitudes outright, cascades opportunity to countless others through ancillary hustles—from blacksmiths forging plowshares to mama mbogas hawking post-harvest bounty—and in Siaya, it forges destinies amid fields that whisper of untapped glory, even as Gumbo’s relentless reforms, including pioneering digital cane-tracking systems now operational across key factories, shield growers from exploitative mills and monsoon failures conspiring to bankrupt dreams.
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