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{
    "id": 154450,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/154450/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 375,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I must declare my interest; I am a maize farmer for many years now. I can assure my colleagues in the House today that if you plant maize without DAP; that maize will not do well. DAP actually has phospherous in it. Phospherous is what makes the roots able to get nutrients from the soil. If you plant maize without DAP or phospherous, four or five weeks later, you do not put on CAN which is mainly calcium ammonium, you will only get eight bags per acre. However, if you do it the right way, you can get anything from 25 bags to 35 bags in the region where I come from. So, you can see there is a whole lot of difference between planting maize without fertilizer and planting it with fertilizer. Also, the spacing of maize from one plant to the other should be nine inches and between the rows should be two and half feet. Unless you do so, you would not get enough plants per acre. These are issues that should be brought by the extension officers within the Ministry of Agriculture. As I have said, when I plant this maize, I do not see these people. So, we are doing it the wrong way. The farmer needs to be supported by GMR programme. It was a wonderful programme, but somehow we lost it. We, as a Government, must give a farmer financial support. We must find ways and means of giving financial support to the farmer. We must give them loans and make fertilizers available. Here, I want to commend the Minister for Agriculture, Mr. William Ruto who tried as much as possible this year to bring the price of fertilizer to a level of Kshs2500 per 50 kilogramme bag and Kshs1700 for CAN. This is one way of enabling the farmer to produce."
}