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{
    "id": 1165913,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1165913/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 95,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I echo the words of Sen. Kajwang’ that Sen. Khaniri has distinguished himself as the master of Statement Hour. If there is a person who has used well the Statement Hour, it is him. Apart from his prowess as a man who is extremely knowledgeable on the Standing Orders, I am told only after the late hon. Shikuku; he has also distinguished himself as a man who uses Statement Hour very well to bring issues that are of great concern to this Republic. Maybe Sen. Khaniri wants to finish strong considering that I see he is changing careers away from Parliament. Agriculture is very lucrative. When the deputy President spoke yesterday to a group of people in Nyeri, he gave an example of avocado farming. He said that in China, one avocado cost about Kshs140. However, there is a young man in China who did a very interesting video moving from his house to the supermarket and demonstrated that one avocado costs Kshs250. These avocadoes are sourced from South American countries like Peru, Chile among others. In fact, there is a movie in Netflix I cannot remember the title, but it talks about this green gold called avocado which people are fighting over in countries like Colombia. People are also controlling where this crops are produced. Agriculture is very lucrative, but the way agriculture was presented many years ago was that it was for those who are established with big farms. If you did not have 10 to 100 acres, you were not considered a proper farmer. However, you now can do passion fruits farming in an acre and earn consistently every week. You can sell every week to those who are collecting and supplying your crops such as passion fruits and all other agricultural products. Agriculture should not be what it is. People use to say they do not want to do farming, but go to university. Now, after you are done with university you realize you want to go back to agriculture. What Sen. Khaniri has said is that we should have specific targeted policy that makes sure agriculture and farming in this country, including livestock is attractive to youths and the generation below 40 years. We should explain to the youth that doing agriculture does not mean you are backward or less educated. You can go back to farming after you complete your university education and use it to ensure you achieve a certain growth in your life. I attempted to do small scale horticulture in my farm. One of the things I struggled with was to get an agricultural extension officer. If you go round in the counties, you will meet very few agricultural extension officers who are trained on different products. Most of them may only know how to deal with maize yet you want to have those who can deal with the delicate crops like avocado and other tree crops. This is another area that county governments need to think about. Those going to be governors, I urge you not to build big hospital buildings which have no medical equipment or shops and markets yet there are no products from the farm. We need to go back to basics. Even if it means having two or three qualified extension officers per sub-county, it will be useful to have farmers. That is an area that we need to invest in. I want to convince Sen. Khaniri that when those of us who are in the hustler nation talk about bottom up, I am serious and not even doing politics. You can go and do your bottom up even in a different political party. However, one of the things that we"
}