HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 177309,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/177309/?format=api",
"text_counter": 279,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Midiwo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 184,
"legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
"slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
},
"content": "They do not have that moral authority. In fact, in many issues they raise, they do not have that morality. I think they are preaching water and drinking wine. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this country's GDP has only 4 per cent of its total coming from agriculture. Yet, we keep on saying that we are an agricultural country. The biggest thing we know is that Kenya is an agricultural country. But agriculture comprises only 4 per cent of our GDP. Why? We have never embraced science. Those countries where people are fed have embraced science. I listened carefully when the Assistant Minister for Livestock Development was contributing and gave false information to this House. A country like America has 54 million hectares of land under GMO foods. That is how they produce their soya, maize, cotton, canulas, squash and paw paw. They do not import those crops because they want to feed their people. Yet, we have our own people saying it is okay not to feed our people. I think we should not be debating for the sake of debate. This Bill has come here before. The Ministry has been very kind and it even met Members of Parliament in a Kamukunji and explained this Bill. Right now, we have a serious food crisis. This is one of the measures that we need to implement as we do the cosmetic ones like bringing down the cost of unga. We need to embrace science to feed our people. The bottom line is that we will perish if we refuse to embrace the brains of the world and our own scientists. We must know that all over the world, everybody is doing that. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I grow tissue culture bananas. I feed a lot of my people. I have many culture tissue bananas and I have never heard of my people dying. In fact, they are very happy after eating those bananas. Yesterday and even this morning, I ate bananas from my own farm. So, I know something which I could not do one year ago. I am able to do it because of biotechnology that was brought to my village by a mzungu. While we are saying that we are just importing it, all this Bill seeks to do is to introduce a regulatory framework so that we can know what we are eating, how we are eating it and who is importing that technology. If you walk into a supermarket in England and America, you will find that the foodstuffs are labelled. That is a simple cosmetic thing. You do not even need research. You will see: \"This is GMO tomato.\" They are big, nice and beautiful. I have eaten them for many years. That is what this Bill seeks to do and that is simple. You can go to Uchumi Supermarket and even an open air market at Kangemi and we can tell our people: \"This has been grown this way. You have a choice.\" Nothing here stops people from growing traditional food crops. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, what we ought to do is to simplify our approach to development. I think the issue of food security is a national security issue. As hon. Members of Parliament and leaders who have been elected, we have a role to play. This country has the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), which this Parliament passes a budget for every year, and nothing comes out. That is because the scope of its research is limited to traditional ways. Every where you go, you see half a quarter acre - KARI is doing experiments with maize. Stop that because it has failed! Import for us technology which is already working somewhere. We have to import technology. We do not even have to do research. There is no need of using a road of 100 kilometres to get to a point, when you can go one kilometre and get there. The bottom line is feeding the people of this country. In this region, Kenya can take the lead because many countries around here look up to us. With regard to cotton, everybody in this Chamber has a cloth made of GMO cotton from 3774 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES December 2, 2008 India. It is not killing us and it has not killed us. We need to be practical and accept that we are taking too long. If big countries such as Argentina, Mexico, America and Britain are all doing it, who are we? Why would we let our people die because some civil society somewhere wants to spend some money donated to them by some external countries? We are not experimental grounds. We need to shun the politics of retrogression. Those politics are meant to make sure that we, as Africans, do not progress in terms of supplying the world with anything. There is no country in Africa listed as practising in this. Therefore, we could be wrong. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to strongly disagree because Africa can feed itself. It can use the very formulae which are working in the West without doing anything that would cost us much. I want to say one last thing. As we introduce this regulatory framework, nothing stops this Parliament from coming back here next year after six months - that is what the Standing Order calls for - to change anything which we may have done wrong. But fear of change is the one which retrogresses us. We cannot afford just to fear to pass a law because it may carry some bad elements with it. I think nothing stops this Parliament from coming back here tomorrow or ten years from today and say: \"Let us do it this way.\" But we must begin and regulate GMOs which have proliferated our markets. They are here. It is not like we want to go and get them from anywhere. We just want our people to know that we care as Parliament. Let us give the people the authority and freedom to produce fast yielding food crops that are disease free and that take too little effort to produce and mature very quickly. Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I beg to support."
}