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{
    "id": 1183486,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1183486/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 148,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Saboti, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Caleb Amisi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to this. I wish to congratulate my neighbour, Hon. Ferdinand Wanyonyi. Being my neighbour, we face the same challenges of land fragmentation. Trans Nzoia County has been known in this country as the bread basket of the Republic of Kenya. We have the basket but there is no bread inside. As emotive as this issue of land is, we should not shy away from putting a stoppage to further fragmentation of land carelessly for the purposes of putting up high-rise commercial building. In Trans Nzoia, for example, the land that was vast, historically owned by white settlers, and was known for very serious large-scale maize farming is now full of gated communities. People are turning fertile arable land into gated communities when we have other areas across the country that are dry. Basically, they cannot be used for farming activities. Those are the areas that we should use for gated communities. We ought to have a programme in this country where we put a stoppage to further fragmentation of land across the country so that there are areas that we can put aside for development or residential and this should be a Government policy. For those who have flown across Europe, you will see patches of residential land from above and you will see large tracts of land across that are not supposed to be residential. There is a farm law against putting up residential houses in certain areas. It is purely for farming and only those individuals who have the capacity to do farming are allowed into those areas. This is exactly what needs to be happening. If you look at Kiambu County that used to have large coffee farms, there is no any acreage of coffee any more. You will instead see high rise and gated communities where people are excited in putting money. These are areas that are high- intensive capital ventures that we are basically putting our money into gated communities and making land that was supposed to be used for farming unavailable. Food insecurity in this country is as a result of not looking for more arable farming areas. We need to capacity build our farmers whether it they are coffee, tea, maize or sugarcane farmers. Areas that are perennially meant for farming of certain crops must be protected by the Government. We must have a clear legal framework to protect land that is arable. Trans Nzoia and other areas of Rift Valley that are supposed to feed this Nation are mostly under land owners who have left them fallow. They have not done anything on the land and people are comfortable owning large tracts of land without use. Their only comfort is that they own acres and acres of land which gives them pride. Pride without having a clear framework of making our land useful for the population is going to be disastrous to this nation in the long run. I appreciate my neighbour for taking the steps to protect further fragmentation of our large-scale farming land that is supposed to be used to feed this nation. We could not be talking about food insecurity if we could put more effort in preserving our large-scale farming. That is supposed to be where our country is. Food is a basic need and land is a factor of production. These are areas that we should not joke around with. This should be part of the work of the Cabinet Secretary. He should come up with land regulations so that lands across counties are The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}