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{
    "id": 154402,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/154402/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 327,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Munyaka",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 86,
        "legal_name": "Victor Kioko Munyaka",
        "slug": "victor-munyaka"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other big issue is that we are also endowed with the second-largest fresh water lake in the world, namely Lake Victoria. However, because of a treaty that was signed during the colonial era, we are not able to use that water for irrigation. If we changed those old archaic laws, we would invest and use that water to mitigate against periodic situations of famine Food is very important. We have seen many countries where people have demonstrated on the streets, because of increase in prices of food. We even have the Biblical story of Joseph, where the Pharaoh dreamt seeing seven fat cows, and then seven emaciated cows. The Pharaoh looked for somebody who could explain the meaning of that dream for him. Many wise men tried and failed. Only Joseph came up and told him: “This means there will be seven years of plenty of harvest that will be followed by seven years of famine and drought.” Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, therefore, the Kenyan nation should be able to learn from that analogy, so that when there is some bumper harvest, we store the excess food for times of drought and starvation. I remember that in the year 2007, we had a bumper harvest. We harvested close to 36 million bags of maize. However, most of it was left to go through the borders. Unscrupulous traders took advantage. Farmers were conned of a lot of maize, which found its way out of the country to other countries. Just because the Government had a limit of three million bags of maize for the National Strategic Grain Reserve (NSGR), we left 33 million bags to go to waste. A year later, we started talking about famine. So, the Government should be proactive. I would suggest that whenever we have a bumper harvest, the NSGR level should be increased, to a minimum of 15 million bags; we are talking about 15 million bags of maize that should"
}