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{
    "id": 152825,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/152825/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 82,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to inform Members that as a long-term measure, it is absolutely clear to us now that we can no longer depend on rain-fed agriculture. That is why we are beginning this year with the first 15,000 hectares to grow food under irrigation. We intend to upscale this production to one million acres in the next three years. We intend to balance the amount of food we produce under rain-fed agriculture with the amount of food we produce under irrigation as a means of securing this country from the hazards of climate change such as erratic rainfall, persistent floods and issues that go beyond what farmers can control by making sure that we reorient and reengineer our agriculture, so that we can be in control of all the factors of production, including availability of water. So, my Ministry is thinking broadly in terms of dealing with these food insecurity problems both on the short and long-term. We want to change the thinking that has continuously informed agriculture in this country; that it can only be done in the high potential areas under rainfall. We need to think and go the direction other countries have gone and produce food under irrigation because 80 per cent of Kenya is arid and semi-arid. The potential for those regions to produce food has not been tapped because we have not gone the route of irrigation. I want to promise this House that we are now on the highway towards that direction."
}