GET /api/v0.1/hansard/entries/132307/?format=api
HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 132307,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/132307/?format=api",
"text_counter": 396,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture and his able Assistants as well as the professional staff in that Ministry. This is one Minister who is determined to make Kenya food-secure. He is one Minister who is willing to think outside the box for the betterment of this nation. He is one Minister who is willing to embrace innovations. The one million acres of land this Ministry is willing to put under irrigated agriculture is just one example. The Minister is willing to learn. He has led a group of Members of Parliament to Israel to learn firsthand how the Israelis have turned their desert into productive land that has made them food-secure and even enabled them to produce a surplus for other hungry nations. The Minister has toured almost all parts of Kenya, including my own constituency of North Horr, which is at the heart of the Chalbi Desert. Due to the hard work of the Ministryâs staff, and the hard work of the staff of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), today we have oasis farming at the heart of the Chalbi Desert. KARI staff have embarked on a major intervention to see to it that there is farming even at the heart of the Chalbi Desert to produce food and fodder for our livestock. If this country is willing to prosper as a nation, we cannot do that with a hungry people. We have to be food-secure. It is only after you are food-secure that you can think of other innovative ideas. You can be ambitious about development. Food security is the basis for any development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, this Ministry has the special role of making this country food-secure, and it is possible for it to achieve that objective. I really commend the Ministry for embarking on serious irrigation farming. There is no way you will go wrong. The land is there. The water is there. All you need is inputs and hard work. The programme that was just launched by His Excellency the President and the Prime Minister in Bura and Hola, among other areas, is just an example. I know that the Minister and his staff are willing to even go to ASALs. The good work that the Ministry is doing, of harvesting water during the rainy season, through sand dams and many other technologies, is to ensure that we have water to irrigate land in the ASALs and even produce fodder for our livestock. Through rain water harvesting, you can produce enough fodder. We will feed our livestock. Those livestock will feed us, and that will be the end of famine and drought in this country. It can be done. If we can do it during the rainy season, why can we not do it during the dry season, if we have water? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am sure that this Ministry can lead. It is a shame that we give such a crucial Ministry very limited funding. If we are serious about feeding and developing this nation, we should fund this Ministry adequately. It makes no sense to give billions of shillings to internal security and defence and give very little to the Ministry that feeds Kenya, including the constituency that I represent in this House, which is highly food-insecure, just because we have not got our priorities right. I strongly encourage the Ministry of Agriculture to work together with the Ministry of Livestock Development. This is one Ministry that has so much capacity to produce a lot of good results, if only it can be well supported. The Ministry of Agriculture is the mother Ministry of the Ministry of Livestock and Development, the latter having been part of the former for a long time. So, the two Ministries can work together to support many ranches and a lot of other good work that needs to be done, including carrying out research for improving livestock production."
}