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{
    "id": 1379069,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1379069/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 175,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Linturi",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 69,
        "legal_name": "Franklin Mithika Linturi",
        "slug": "franklin-linturi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I am an implementer of presidential directives. The President indeed directed that we do what is practically possible to ensure that the interests of farmers are taken care of and that we safeguard them from exploitation. We have been trying to address this particular question, but there is no quick fix. We are progressively getting there. I would like to give examples of what we are doing. First, I thank the Committee on Delegated Legislation. I appeared before it and we discussed and passed the Strategic Food Reserve Regulations. We have certain classes of food crops that are to be identified as strategic food reserves. We had cereals like maize, beans and pulses. We even managed to include milk because those are areas that we thought were very necessary. We classified them that way with the concurrence of Parliament. We were doing this because we wanted to make sure that as we prepare or maintain our food balance sheet in the country and stocks, we can off-take from farmers what is produced in excess. That way, we can easily provide the budgets to buy them as food strategic reserves for a rainy day. In my view, that was a very great step towards ensuring that we have regulations that we can use to request money to ensure that whenever there is an area that produces a lot, that produce can be taken and put into our stores to ensure that there is availability of funds to use and to set a price, such that farmers are not exploited. A very specific example is, currently, we produce many bags of maize in the country. We have met our consumption and even surpassed it. That is why you find that there is not much noise because Kenyans can afford food either from what they have produced, or they can just cheaply get food from others that have produced more. Since this is something we knew and is a matter that the first time I had discussions with the committees of Parliament, the Members from both the North and the South Rift raised it. I almost landed myself into hot soup when I said, “if there is no maize, you can eat potatoes because they are both sources of starch”. So, out of this experience, we ensured that finances from the National Treasury were made available for us to target to buy one million bags of maize at the rate of Kshs4,000. So, we got money to buy maize and we told the farmers that since they had produced, if they were hard-pressed for cash and they wanted money, they would not have to succumb to the pressure of the brokers; the predatory cartels that Sen. Wambua was talking about. The Kenya National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) stores are open for you. You can deposit your maize there, we will buy it at Kshs4,000. That is why the maize farmers are not complaining because the last time I checked, the millers were buying at around Kshs4,300 to Kshs4,600. Today, because the price of maize has gone down, there are queues at the NCPB Stores for farmers who want to sell their maize because now the market is in a way that millers now want to buy at less than Kshs4,000. We are telling our people not to sell their maize at a loss below Kshs4,000 because the Government has provided money to NCPB to buy the maize. We have now managed to deal with them. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard Services,Senate."
}