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{
    "id": 1477504,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1477504/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 189,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I would like to comment on the statement raised by the Senator for Nandi, Sen. Cherarkey, touching on low returns for tea farmers. If you visit counties like Nyamira, Kericho, Bomet and Nandi where tea is grown, farmers are crying. In Nyamira, for example, where I am also a tea farmer, we have Kebirigo and Nyansiongo tea factories. Our farmers earned Kshs24 as bonus. Others in some regions are earning bonuses to the tune of Kshs60. Do our farmers not live in Kenya? The tea that is exported from Mombasa is supposed to benefit everybody. We cannot be smelling others having meat when our farmers are crying. In Nyamira, there are farmers facing auction. We cannot allow that to happen. We were in this House when the Senate Majority Leader brought a Bill on tea reforms and we supported it. The expectation was that our farmers would have money in their pockets. Now, what we have is hue and cry. How can you pay a farmer Kshs24 when the cost of production has gone up? In my county, we are paying tea pluckers Kshs13 per kilogramme. There is also fertiliser and tilling the farm which you have to pay someone to do. Why are we killing tea farmers? The highest foreign earner for this country is tea. The returns on export for tea have gone up. My statistics tell me that in 2023, the earning was US$674 million. This year, it is US$795 million. Our expectation was that the bonus for the farmer would go up and not down. I plead with those in the management of the tea sector, such as our directors at the KTDA and the people in Mombasa, whom I do not know whether to call them cartels, but they are. They are referred to as the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA). They should make sure that we have good returns for the over 600,000 tea farmers in this country."
}