Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1142731,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1142731/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 227,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "Eventually, this adds up to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), not only of the state but also of the national Government at the end. I know we have those who have had the privilege and opportunity to tour the Kibbutz in Israel. It is an agricultural settlement. In Kisii and Nyamira counties and many other counties, for example, we have shrinking land masses because of the population. It is not possible to carry out large scale farming in the little land strips that have been allocated to various homes. Therefore, farmers should come together like they do in Kibbutz. In Kibbutz, farmers promote dairy products. They get dairy animals and have all of them housed in one place. Their labour input is part of their shareholding in that kind of arrangement. At the end of it, the final product is sold. Theirs is an organized market. Lack of an organized market is one of the biggest problems farmers in Kenya are facing today. In Kibbutz, people pull together their potential in terms of human, social and economic capital. There is input by their national Government. In our case, it would be a county government doing so because agriculture is a devolved function. At the end, you get a very viable and competing entity that will provide services to the people. The interesting part of that Kibbutz arrangement is in line with what this Community Groups Registration Bill (National Assembly Bills No.20 of 2021) is proposing. There is an arrangement around that village or community. The arrangement takes the form of social services, schools, road networks, infrastructure, water and sanitation, immunization programmes, prevention of certain infectious diseases and doing certain things which are right. If we do it right, even us we will be able to identify the primary agricultural products that will form the first base for those communities to coalesce with one another and promote a certain product. For example, we have the banana industry in Kisii. This is the industry where a farmer has zero returns. Farmers have to till land and produce beautiful bunches of bananas. When you go along the main highway, you will find bunches of bananas literally rotting. Farmers have to sell bananas at through away prices. That is not amusing because they toil, apply fertilizer and manpower hours to till the land in order to produce bananas. However, when it comes to returns, they literally get no returns whatsoever."
}