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{
    "id": 1488634,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1488634/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 265,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Muhoroni, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. James K’Oyoo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for allowing me to share this important development with my colleagues. As all of you are aware, my constituency is the heart and soul of sugarcane growing and milling. This development can either add much value to my constituents or hurt them. I want to pay tribute to the Mediation Committee. We canvassed in the House most of the issues covered in the Bill, save for a few contentious issues that remained. I will talk about zoning, which is the elephant in the room. It is in the interest of the farmers I lead that there be no zoning. They grow sugarcane by their own efforts. It is imperative that when they harvest, they should be given the freedom to sell to the best miller with the capacity to help them harvest and transport them and pay them in good time. We have had serious problems with certain millers who want to restrict farmers in my constituency. They capitalise on the fact that Government millers are semi-dysfunctional. They capitalise on the plight of farmers because of the dysfunction of government factories, and they offer themselves as the only people with solutions. They want to restrict farmers from supplying sugarcane to them when they have no capacity. They do very little. They cannot improve the roads. There is nothing they do that adds value to farmers. So, zoning is something that farmers in my constituency detest. The Board and the Mediation Committee have tried to deal with it, but there are many circumlocutions. My friend told me that a rose by any name is still a rose. I have seen many circumlocutions. We want the matter to be addressed well so that farmers have something called soko huru . A farmer should sell to any miller unless, as indicated, there is evidence that the farmer took a loan to develop his farm or got some fertiliser from a miller. When a farmer, like the ones in my constituency, has developed a farm by himself, he should be permitted to sell to whoever he wants. Any circumlocution that seeks to curtail a farmer's freedom is not good for us. I have seen semblance of it in the Report."
}