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{
    "id": 1053472,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1053472/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 240,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13322,
        "legal_name": "John Kiarie Waweru",
        "slug": "john-kiarie-waweru"
    },
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker and the opportunity to contribute to this amendment is highly appreciated. I rise to support a good friend of mine, Hon. Kassim Tandaza Sawa on this amendment that he is making to the Crops Act. It is very clear that Hon. Tandaza did not waste his school fees at Alliance High School. In fact, in moving this Bill, we were very impressed by the amount of research that had gone into his effort to amend the Crops Act and for that, I must commend Hon. Kassim Tandaza Sawa. I have to say that from what is coming out, this crop by the name Bixa - which is locally referred to as mrangi - is important to the economy of the Coast. However, not only for the economy of the Coast but it looks like it can be a crop that will be very meaningful to the economy of the entire country. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think the opportunity we have been given in this amendment is one, for us to look holistically at the whole issue of agriculture in this country. It is a point where we can start questioning ourselves on how we have been conducting the business of agriculture. We are always told that you should not look at someone's priorities by how they list them, but by how they prioritise the investment into these priorities. We have not been prioritising investment in agriculture. It is important that as we are looking at this amendment, we rethink the whole model of agriculture in this country. Let us think about our rainfed agriculture. It always puzzles me that we take a commodity like petroleum all the way from the Coast at the port to the farthest corners of this country. If you wanted petroleum in any corner of this country, you only need to drive to a petrol station and you shall get fuel. It puzzles me why we have not been able to take advantage of Lake Victoria, which is the largest fresh water lake in Africa, in the same way we pipe petroleum. It puzzles me how we cannot pipe water to the far-flung corners of this country. That is why I am saying that this is an important time to relook at how we do agriculture. I support this amendment understanding that this crop called Bixa, as we are being told, is drought-resistant. It is disease and pest-resistant. We also understand that by listing it as a cash crop, we shall be forcing our Government to start investing a bit more on it. By investment, I am talking about through the line investment. We are told that this crop has no waste. Even as we extract products from the seed, we understand that there is much more that can be done in terms of value addition to this crop. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}