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{
    "id": 1255168,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1255168/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 395,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "necessarily an enemy to mankind. They teach us that bees can be harnessed, mobilized to provide honey and need not to be fought by humans. These services used to be there before devolution. It is sad when many citizens think that devolution killed extension services. We have to put legal framework and that is what Sen. Tabitha Mutinda is proposing. We need to have structures. We also need to link what extension workers are doing with what county governments are doing. We also need to link policy on extension workers with the national Government policy. Madam Temporary Speaker, this country must realise that our comparative advantage lies in agriculture not in our beaches. We have visited countries with better beaches. Zanzibar just next door and Australia have better beaches. I have not been to Brazil but the distinguished Senator for Kilifi Sen. Madzayo told me of a time he visited Brazil and he almost never came back; even though he came back with one extra traveler from Brazil. He confirmed that the beaches there are wonderful and beautiful. Our comparative advantage is not in our parks. South Africa, Namibia and other countries have better parks. Our comparative advantage lies in our geographical location which allows us to have the best tea and coffee that you cannot find elsewhere. We went to Costa Rica to check their coffee industry and they envy us here is Kenya. They say even though they have a nascent coffee industry, it cannot beat Kenya because Kenya is gifted by nature by virtue of its geography. It is our geography that allows us to produce and make agriculture one of the most significant contributors to our GDP and the largest employer. Even if we wanted to increase our tax revenue, we must promote and spur productivity, particularly in agriculture. When Mwai Kibaki took over power, one of the first things he came up with was not strategy on optimization of taxes, but revitalization of the economy. In so doing, he set up various task forces. One of them came up with something we still remember called the Strategy for the Revitalization of Agriculture (SRA). As a result of this there were legislative reforms. There were more than 30 Acts of Parliament that guided or governed the space in agriculture. The SRA collapsed almost 30 parastatals and state corporations into one instrument that was called the Agriculture Food and Fisheries Authority Act. This led to the consolidation and the circumvention of duplication of roles that were draining the Consolidated Fund. This brought focus which enabled the National Government to look at agriculture as a strategic enabler to the well being of the economy and provision of employment in this country. The SRA has undergone several metamorphoses. The Uhuru Kenyatta Government came up with the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS). The current Government must either adopt ASTGS as it is - even though I have severe reservations on ASTGS as being the strategy that will revitalize and ensure that the agricultural sector becomes as productive as it ought to be. We must rethink how to ensure that agriculture continues to be the core and backbone of this economy."
}