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{
    "id": 1184151,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1184151/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mosop, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Abraham Kirwa",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "their maize to the NCPB at a good price. The price at the moment is Ksh5,500 per bag, but with the importation of 10 million bags, the price will automatically drop down to about Ksh2,000 per bag. What are the farmers going to do? The inputs at the beginning of the year were very expensive. Farmers used quite a bit of their resources to plant and grow maize. Now that they have started to harvest, you want to flood the market with cheap maize to make sure that farmers do not recoup their investments. Hon. Moses Kuria was a Member of this House and he was a champion of the guaranteed minimum returns for the farmer, but now that he is the Cabinet Secretary, he has authorised the importation of 10 million bags of maize. What changed the man who used to champion the course of farmers? He will be the first person to import maize which we believe is going to be a lot cheaper. We are requesting the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock to sermon the Minister for Trade, Investment and Industry to come to the House to explain to us the logic behind importation of 10 million bags of maize into the country when we have a robust harvest. Yesterday, when I went around most parts of my constituency, I realised that many farmers have already harvested maize and they are waiting for the NCPB to open their doors. However, before the doors are even opened, we hear that so many bags of maize have already been brought into the country. This Motion seeks to know what logic was applied to warrant the importation. What have we done about the GMO maize? This issue had been previously discussed in this House, and there were different views. As of today, no conclusion has been reached on whether GMOs are really safe or not. We have already imported 10 million bags of maize whose safety we are not guaranteed of. Soon it will get to the millers who will grind it and package flour and supply to our supermarkets. This means that we will be consuming GMO maize in a few weeks’ time! We are asking that the gazettement of this importation be put on hold. We request that we discuss and review the safety of GMO maize before we go ahead with the importation. We are yet to confirm if the GMO maize has arrived. If it is true, how did the maize arrive before the gazettement is done? What have we done about the safety of the GMO maize? Is the House in agreement about such importation? Let us not import maize at a time when most of our farmers have harvested enough. They depend on maize for food, and payment of school fees for their children. It is their livelihood. If the prices go down, farmers will end up not growing maize in the coming season. If the prices are so low, yet they had invested so much during the planting season, it means that they will lose money and maize will be an option. The Rift Valley Region, which is the bread basket of Kenya, will start to explore other crops, and we might end up not having enough maize in the coming years. Hon. Deputy Speaker, allow me to end here and say that I support this Motion. Let us look into this issue and stop importation for now until this matter is addressed and we have a conclusive way forward."
}