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{
    "id": 1158865,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1158865/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 105,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this. I congratulate the distinguished Senator for Vihiga County for always being spot on with things that are really important. One of them is the obsolete equipment being used by our Meteorological Department. The link between our agricultural productivity and the public weather systems cannot be gainsaid. It is true that 35 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from agriculture and 40 per cent of export earnings come from agriculture. We cannot afford to just play with this kind of livelihoods and lives of the Kenyans. Where I come from, livestock is our mainstay. Right now, our rangelands are not regenerating because of the effects of climate change. If we had proper weather information from radar to wireless networks, we could have had better policies to help pastoralists in this country to have better grasp of their rangelands, cycles and precipitation. God forbid, if this country were to suffer big events such as storms and tornadoes. We are very lucky we do not suffer those. If we did, today we would be talking another story. We are very lucky to be on the Equator where extreme weather patterns tend to be rare. If that were not the case, we would be speaking of thousands of people decimated because we are off point each time with our weather forecast and innovations. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we do not have even the basic super computers or the new workstations in our Meteorological Department. These are things we should not take lightly. You and I perhaps have smartphones, where we can just check the weather and decide what to wear. However, in terms of agricultural and livestock productivity, range land management, effects of climate change and Government policy to ensure that our productivity and sectors that really drive the economy are taken care of, we must start investing in the right places. One of these right places is to ensure that the public weather services are innovative, relevant and of good quality to ensure that our productivity does not suffer, especially when it is facing 40 per cent of export earnings."
}