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{
    "id": 1088270,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1088270/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 159,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Ndwiga",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 278,
        "legal_name": "Peter Njeru Ndwiga",
        "slug": "peter-ndwiga"
    },
    "content": "Madam Deputy Speaker, the Committee will propose amendments to address the coffee marketing structure and streamline the payment system, so that the farmers will be paid what is due to them on time. The amendments we intend to propose to this Bill specifically concentrate on the marketing structure of coffee. Madam Deputy Speaker, at one point, Kenya used to produce an excess of 140,000 metric tonnes of coffee for export. Today, Kenya exports less than 36,000 metric tonnes. The reason for this is that the marketing structure of coffee in this country was left to people to had no interest in the farmer. I want to highlight a few incidents and the system of the current marketing of coffee in the Republic. When farmers pick their coffee, they deliver it to their cooperative society. Once the coffee is delivered to their cooperative society, it is taken to a miller who will mill the coffee into clean coffee at the first stage. It is what we call parchment. At the miller stage, we get clean coffee for export. What has been happening in this country is that the coffee millers are also the coffee marketing agents. Madam Deputy Speaker, I want you to imagine a case where the farmers have delivered their coffee to the miller, and that miller is also the marketing agent who will sell the coffee for them. In many instances, the marketing agents are also agents of the buyers. What eventually happens is that once the coffee gets to the millers, it is up to them to decide how much they will pay the farmers. It is like giving your goat to a hyena to herd it for you. It is the millers and the commercial agents who decide how much the farmer will be paid. Madam Deputy Speaker, as if that is not enough, even before the money is paid to the cooperative societies, some of the cooperative leaders collude with the marketing agents. The money is skimmed at the top so that the farmers are only told how much their"
}