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{
    "id": 1279524,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1279524/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 581,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Lugari, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Nabii Nabwera",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Wekesa, produces between 110 to 138 tonnes of sugarcane per acre whereas the industry average now stands at 38 tonnes. This means that the agronomical practices in the industry have entirely collapsed. Therefore, this explains why the factories cannot have enough sugarcane to mill, necessitating research at the core of this Bill. If you look at the texture of sugarcane farming, 400,000 farmers are small-scale. Only 8 per cent of the cane comes from large-scale farmers. Yet, in this industry, the farmers are not organized in any particular manner. Therefore, they are taken advantage of by the millers. This came into this industry immediately after we repealed the Sugar Act and came up with the AFFA Act. The out-grower institutions were very effective. I am sure Hon. Melly, Hon. Salasya, and Hon. Nyikal, who come from the sugar growing areas, will tell you when sugarcane was a profitable venture, the out-grower institutions, and cooperatives were very effective and spoke for farmers. Liberalization and uncouth behaviour by some millers to kill out grower institutions created a monopoly of the venture by the miller. That explains why the farmer’s voice disappeared from the table of the sugarcane economy. If we do not enact this Bill, 14 million people who depend on this crop will all be declared below the poverty line. We compete for resources in Kenya. Usually, the left does not know what the right is doing. However, on this one, we ask everyone to know what the other is doing. The right should know what the left is doing. Farmers have been protesting in the Muhoroni Sugar Belt up to the day before yesterday. What was the issue? They were asking a simple question. How come the Government, through the AFFA, said that all millers should close, but one miller has not? That is what is happening in the industry. Sugar barons are controlling it. Sugar imported into the country arrives at the Port of Mombasa at not more than Ksh88 per kilo. Why are we paying Ksh350 per kilo? It is because we have turned sugar into a political and commercial venture. Sugar has been oiling the politics of this country. As we enact this Bill, I appeal to my colleagues to rate sugarcane as an agricultural food. We need to rate it as food. If we do so, we even reduce the cost of production because the Value Added Tax (VAT) on it automatically disappears. That is what we need to do if we want to help our farmers. This House must live up to its name. Why do I say that? Sugar barons previously controlled the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development. They tried to put the cart before the horse. They brought regulations to the House. What were the regulations implementing? You must first have an Act in place, and then regulations come in to help implement that law. Why do I fully support the Bill? The Task Force Report, which the Government adopted, was a negotiated document. Therefore, the Bill is a product of a negotiated document by all stakeholders in the sugar industry. I support the Bill."
}