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{
    "id": 1476518,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1476518/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 69,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Uasin Gishu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gladys Boss",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to speak about this topic. I am extremely passionate about it. As Members of Parliament, we must stop lamenting and start acting. The only place where action can happen is in Parliament. We can pass the necessary laws and regulations to ensure that farmers are protected. This is not just about coffee and tea farmers. It is farming across the agriculture sector. If you look at our history from the time of Independence, you will realise that the performance in the entire farming industry has been on a declining trajectory. There is no time it has taken a positive trajectory. As Kenyans, we should ask ourselves why there is what is called ‘English tea’ in Europe yet there is not even a single tea plantation in Europe or England. What they call ‘English tea’ is actually Kenyan tea. If you go around the whole of America and Europe, you find Starbucks selling coffee yet they do not have a single coffee plantation. There is something wrong with us as a country. The education in which the Government has invested heavily over the years has not helped us. We should have changed that trajectory by now. We must change this situation. I am asking the Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries to spearhead this initiative if he is truly worth the seat that Kenyans have given him. He must engage with the Ministry and stakeholders to find ways of turning this around, so that any Kenyan tea that is sold abroad is recognized as Kenyan tea and not English tea because the tea plantations are ours. We have continued to behave as if we are still a British colony. During the colonial times, it was okay for them to make that claim because they grew the tea in Kenya, took it to their country and called it ‘English tea.’ During that time, we were a British Protectorate. We are not a British Protectorate or colony anymore. Therefore, we must change the name of our tea to ‘Kenyan tea.’ The food production system that we previously had enabled us to produce sufficient rice, palm oil, coconut oil, wheat, sugar and maize. We are now a net importer of all these commodities even though we are able to grow them. We must interrogate and fault ourselves as Members of Parliament. It is not the job of the farmer to resolve that issue. It is our job and we must do it. The counties where agriculture is devolved to, how much effort are they putting to ensure that they maximise rice production so that our supermarkets are not filled by imported rice, meat, edible oil, palm oil and things that we are capable of producing? We even import nuts that we are capable of producing as we have land and labour. Unless we act, as Parliament, Kenya will always remain poor and will always be a net importer 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."
}