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{
    "id": 1498912,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498912/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 506,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr Andrew Mwihia Karanja",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Development",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "will be able to respond more comprehensively when we come here next. I will give you my contact so that we can also liaise with you to get to the details. I do not want to be seen to be biased against simsim. It is a crop like any other and we have to handle it. In terms of coolers, we identify the locations based on the needs we received. As it has been said, His Excellency the President has also promised some areas coolers. So, we are taking that into account. We are also working with co-operatives; we are not giving coolers to individuals. We cannot give a cooler to an individual. We are giving them mainly to co- operatives and other associations which involve a group of farmers. So, that is very clear. About what we are doing in terms of the production of milk and quality of the animals, the Government is making sure that good genetic materials, sexed semen being one of them, are being distributed across the country. We are even investing a lot more in the centre which produces semen in Kabete. We also have plans to make sure that some of the semen is distributed across the co-operatives which we are working with. The same is happening with seeds and seedlings. I would like to assure Members that we have worked around the clock to make sure that this country has enough seeds and seedlings. The Kenya Seed Company and other seed-producing companies have worked very hard. We are sure that come next season, we will have enough seeds in the country. We are also working to eradicate the menace of fake seeds so that farmers do not get them. About the extension services, we know agriculture is a devolved function. Last month, we had a meeting with the county governments in Mombasa and about 20 governors attended. One of the issues we were discussing was about how to revive extension services and how the national Government can work with county governments to build their capacity in order to revive extension services. One of the areas we agreed upon, and what the national Government is doing, is what we are calling the agri-preneur model. Here, we are recruiting young people and taking them to the counties. Already 2,800 have been recruited and sent to the counties. At the end, we want to have about 18,000 young people who will work together with the counties to strengthen our extension services which have gone down. We are doing everything possible to make sure that extension services are up and running. Canola is one crop which has a lot of potential. As I said, there is an oil-crop programme we are working on which concerns sunflower and canola. This time round, I can assure the Member that we are going to see the Government's intervention more in terms of canola production. Thank you."
}