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{
    "id": 103286,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/103286/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 305,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Outa",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 133,
        "legal_name": "Fredrick Otieno Outa",
        "slug": "fredrick-outa"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to support this Motion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I personally want to thank the Minister for Agriculture, who is here. I believe that this Motion is overdue. Its implementation will enable us to produce enough food for our country, and have a surplus to export to neighbouring countries. Irrigation schemes are noble projects in this country. The Government meant well in establishing the few irrigation schemes that we have, including Mwea, Ahero and Bunyala Irrigation Schemes, in terms of boosting the food security in this country. However, you will realise that with all those principles of setting up irrigation schemes in this country – a mandate that has been given to the National Irrigation Board (NIB) to help farmers to produce enough food for this country – because of mismanagement by the NIB, most of those irrigation schemes collapsed. As you know, my constituency is one of the beneficiaries. We do not have only 2,000 acres under irrigation, we also have over 15,000 acres that can be utilised for irrigation purposes. However, due to lack of funding from the Government, for about seven years now after the collapse of the West Kano and Ahero Irrigation Scheme, we have managed to produce rice not to the maximum potential of this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to ask the Minister for Agriculture to take use her full mandate and take rice production in all the irrigation schemes and put them under her docket. This is because what we have seen previously is that the management of rice production, which was left to the NIB, has not done well, because the NIB does not have enough personnel. Talking of personnel, you cannot get an engineer to be a researcher into a good variety of rice. That is why most of those irrigation schemes collapsed. Most of those irrigation schemes do not even have agronomists under the management of the NIB. What the NIB has are engineers. Of late, even with the little support they get from the Government through the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, most of the farmers are suffering from shortage of modern technology because most the engineers within the NIB do not have enough knowledge of the rice production process. Therefore, most irrigation schemes have suffered a number of diseases. As a result, we have what we call “poor production of rice” in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, personally, I believe that this is the time. We have a knowledgeable Minister, whom I know will do well in all the irrigation schemes in this country. I believe that even the money that was given to the NIB from previous"
}