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{
    "id": 1201235,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1201235/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 315,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Tabitha Keroche",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "President’s mission and vision, to scale up productivity in agriculture. We shall ensure that we have adequate and affordable food, as well as food security and value addition to support our industrialization. Agriculture has for many years, been the backbone of Kenya’s economy. The sector contributes about 30 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for 80 per cent of national employment, mainly in the rural areas. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, Nakuru’s contribution towards the GDP in agriculture averages 35 per cent. Nakuru is blessed with good climate and soils. We can grow everything apart from sunflower and coconut. We have an industrial park that is coming up. I believe that when it is up and running, we will be ready to serve the industries in the park with raw materials from our farmers. I challenge the Senators in this House to establish what is grown in their counties, so that value addition can be done to the agricultural produce. We have a saying that goes, ‘to kill two birds with one stone,’ but I believe the President killed four birds with one stone. That means that we should work on our agricultural sector because we import most of the raw materials. We import the least of raw material that you can imagine. We should improve our agricultural productivity by ensuring value addition to our produce. That way, I am sure we will put money in our farmers’ pockets. During campaigns, we went round telling Kenyans that we will ensure that we put money in their pockets. The first thing is to ensure that we add value to agricultural produce, so that we put money in their pockets. We have the best honey here from Kitui and Baringo, but you will see us going to the supermarkets to buy the honey from Australia. When I was coming here, I bought a 300g yoghurt for my lunch and it cost Ksh180. Where I come from, 13 grams of malted barley is used to make a litre of beer, which is sold. When you sell this beer the Kenya Government gets Kshs142, then there is the value added to the farmers, creation of jobs and all that."
}