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{
    "id": 132322,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/132322/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 411,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Duale",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Livestock Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to thank the Minister. For the first time in the history of this country, he has taken the lead in finding a way of taking this country towards adopting irrigation. We have seen Kshs3 billion allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture. We were at the launch of the Hola Irrigation Scheme from where we expect to harvest 14 million bags of maize in the next quarter of the year. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, coming back home, when I say “home” I mean where I come from. I want to dwell on the opportunities that are available for the people of North Eastern and specifically the people of Dujis whom I represent. We have an irrigation potential of about 20,000 acres along River Tana. We have a permanent source of water and the largest river in this country. We also have enough Government and Non-Governmental Organizations’ (NGOs) presence. Above all, we have a very competent technical staff of the Ministry of Agriculture. The question that comes to one’s mind is, why out of the 20,000 acres of irrigation potential in Garissa, only 2,060 have been exploited? This is only close to 10 per cent. I want to thank the Minister for Agriculture for the various income and livelihood supporting projects that his Ministry has undertaken across the country including my constituency. They include the National Agriculture and Livestock Extension Programme, the Njaa Marufuku Programme, the Water Harvesting Programme and many others. I would also like to thank him for the major improvements they are doing in terms of re-introducing traditional crops like sorghum, maize, cow peas and many others. However, if you look at Dujis Constituency, I have 91,000 acres of rain-fed potential. Out of this, only 1,320 acres have been exploited. The reason for this is well known. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry is not exploiting the ran-fed agriculture potential because less than 300 millimeters per annum of rainfall is what my constituency receives against the 650 millimeters expected per annum. We want to see how we can solve the food insecurity in this country. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}