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{
    "id": 1042332,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1042332/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 112,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "I do not know whether Sen. Ndwiga has left or he is still here. He has been on the frontline championing the issues of farmers. As we talk about tea today, the cereal boards are not open to take in the farmers grains for a harvest that started in late August. As I speak, Mumias Sugar Company is dead, Nzoia Sugar Company is mahututi, and many others. As I speak, the coffee farmers are suffering. As we support this process of change, let it not be change for one sector only. Those of us who were in the Tenth Parliament stand indicted for having blindly passed the AFA Bill that consolidated all agricultural laws into one without proper transition, management and structures and the AFA became a monster. So, deconstructing the AFA is the way to go. We want to see the Sugar Act, the Pyrethrum Act and all Acts of Parliament that were there that made the nourishment of crop farming in this country back on the shelves of our laws. Equally important is the fact that agriculture is devolved. I have seen a memorandum somewhere from the Council of Governors (CoG) complaining that their views were also not taken on board sufficiently or at all. So, as we pass this, we must know that legislation cannot be cast in stone. It is a process that we can continue improving where necessary to make things work better. Mr. Speaker, Sir, passing this Bill should not be an end, but the beginning of positive reforms in the tea sector that will make it possible for farmers to get just returns from their sweat. They wake up in the morning, toil and moil in the sun and in the heat. Some are bitten by snakes in the tea farms, but at the end of the day, they end up getting very little. This has to be stopped, checked and reformed. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I support the Bill and urge the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries to enjoin the proponent of this Bill to continue looking at how we can make things better for the tea farmer in this country. I thank you."
}