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{
    "id": 1219719,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1219719/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 70,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Caroli Omondi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker for giving me the opportunity to talk about these two issues. Let me, first, start with the issue of food security before I come to the forced disappearance. Food poverty levels in Kenya today are in excess of 50 per cent. Less than 60 per cent of our families have three square meals a day while the majority have one. This is largely not because of the advanced weather and climate change, it is because of the way we have handled our land tenure system. All the large farms that used to be in Kenya 30 or 40 years ago have been sub-divided into small plots because of the way we practise agriculture and the way we live. I think the Government has not been doing enough to try and help consolidation. Food security is a function of mechanised agriculture. It is not a function of subsistence farming. We can talk about seeds, manure and fertilisers but as long as our farm holdings are of such size that cannot afford to be mechanised, there would never be a time when Kenya will be food- secure. That is where we should start. Either we aggregate our farming areas and try to create cooperatives that can then mechanise farming the way the white people do it or used to do it, or we stare at a permanent food insecurity. Secondly, we need to make a deliberate effort. The water flows where you can do irrigation in Kenya, that is, from Nakuru to the Lake region and the western parts of Kenya. That is where we should focus on irrigation for purposes of food security. This issue, coupled with shortage of water, will create a lot of conflict amongst communities in future. The State deliberately abducting or imprisoning people directly or through third parties in concert with such parties for political reasons is very common. It is something that we need to tackle seriously together with the other issue of extra-judicial killings. Tied to that, more lives are also being lost in killings where the State is not involved like the deaths that occur due to cattle rustling, farm invasions and other such things. We need to relook at the legal framework of how we deal with those issues. Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker."
}