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{
    "id": 1463590,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1463590/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 503,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Matungu ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Peter Nabulindo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you. As you have rightly put, on Wednesday last week, I was moving this Motion but time caught up with us and you informed me that I will have 25 minutes to continue moving the Motion. I will, however, not utilise the entire 25 minutes because my colleagues are here and have expressed interest in the Motion. Therefore, I will give them a little more time. The purpose of this Motion is to make sure that the farmer is well taken care of, so that he or she can produce sugarcane the way it is supposed to be. There have been efforts to revive the sugarcane industry over a long period of time. Many stakeholders have been involved; including the Government, farmers, leaders, politicians, businessmen and everybody else who is interested in the sugarcane industry. The problem is that we have always missed the point. We have always targeted the millers and forgotten the farmer. Without the farmer being empowered, the sugarcane industry will always struggle to stand on its feet. That is because the only engine that can drive the revival of the sugarcane industry is provision of adequate and quality raw materials. That can only be provided by the farmers. The little land that was set aside as the nucleus estate cannot sustain the millers for even a week. The big percentage of raw materials that are taken to the milling factories come from the farmer. The farmer has, however, always been neglected. Initially, when the sugarcane industry was starting in Kenya in the 1970s, there was a clear way in which farmers were empowered to produce sugarcane. First, there was elaborate research done on the land, the seed cane and on the acreage that the farmer had, and that could be available for farming. Before the factories could be taken care of, the farmer was the first. I very well remember and it is in history that... I will give an example from the Mumias zone where I come from. At that time, after the registration of farmers and establishing the acreage that the farmer is able to utilise, the then Booker Company provided the farmer with inputs like tractors so that the land could be ploughed. After ploughing the land, it could then be harrowed and the farmer provided with quality seed cane. After the provision of those inputs, the farmer would then be provided with fertiliser to do the planting of the seed cane. That enabled the farmer to start the process of sugarcane production. And that process did not stop there. After six to eight months, the farmer was provided with fertiliser for top-dressing. There was extension services provided by the company or the miller at that time, to educate the farmer on how to take care of his or her crop. Unfortunately, right now, such services are not there. The farmers have been left alone and are not able to know what to do. We now have a new generation of farmers. They are not the old ones that we used to know. The new generation of farmers are not given any information on how to cultivate the sugarcane. That lack of financial support to the farmer is the major reason why the sugarcane industry is not picking at all. This Motion, therefore, is intended to make sure that the Government of Kenya and the investors in the sugarcane milling factories put aside a special fund that will enable the farmer to get the necessary inputs to produce sugarcane that they dearly want. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}