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"id": 181850,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Khaniri",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Information and Communications",
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"id": 171,
"legal_name": "George Munyasa Khaniri",
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"content": " Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to make my remarks on this Vote of the Ministry of Agriculture. In support of this Vote, I just have two or three points to make. Before I make them, I want to take this early opportunity to join my colleagues who have spoken earlier in congratulating the Minister for the very able and eloquent way in which he moved his Vote. I would also like to congratulate him for the good vision that he has for this Ministry. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I listened to the Minister yesterday while moving this Vote and I want to say that I was very happy to listen to the policies that he said he intends to put in place in order to improve farming and agriculture in this country. I have a lot of confidence in him and I think if these policies are implemented, then he will move the agricultural sector to the next level. I have confidence in him and the technical team that he is working with, some of whom I had an opportunity to work with when I was in the Ministry of Agriculture. Almost all the speakers I have listened to since yesterday agree on one thing; that agriculture is the backbone of the economy of this country and that is a fact. I want to support that agriculture is the backbone of our economy. Agriculture is the main source of income and livelihood for majority of Kenyans and we must accept this fact. I know we would want to be an industrialised country but we have not achieved that. We are still relying heavily on agriculture. That is the reason why we are saying that we must treat it as the backbone of this economy. It is high time that we treated agriculture like a business venture as I heard one hon. Member say here. It is high time we gave adequate budgetary allocation to this Ministry for them to be able to give to the farmers the services that they require. It is high time we ensured that the Kenyan farmer got his farm inputs, the seedlings and fertiliser at the correct price, for them to be competitive. It is high time we ensured that we gave them the market after they have produced whatever they are producing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is high time we started thinking on how we can give subsidies 3142 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 29, 2008 to farmers. It defeats logic for sugar to be grown in Brazil which is about 10,000 kilometres from here and then it is shipped to Kenya. It comes here and attracts tax and yet it, is still cheaper than sugar that is produced locally here. We must look into what is ailing our sugar production and ensure that we are able to produce sugar cheaply like Brazil. The situation as it is now in Kenya, the farmer toils and labours for the whole year. He spends most of his time on the farm. He spends so much resources on farm inputs but at the end of it all, he does not get the desired returns. This is what has led to incidences of farmers uprooting their cash crops like tea. This is what has led to the food shortage that we are experiencing in the country now. It is because the farmer has relaxed because he is not getting returns. He is not getting paid for the hard work that he puts in. That is why we are now importing food when Kenya is a country that should be producing enough food for consumption here and even for export. Therefore, I just want to support the Minister when he says that he will be coming to this House sometime early next year with a Supplementary Estimate so that we can add him more money. The Kshs13 billion we are giving to this Ministry is not enough. I want to agree with him and I think that when he comes up with that Supplementary Estimate, the House should be able to support him. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we have to improve the earnings of the farmers in this country, we must come up with a policy to stop export of raw agricultural materials or products. The Ministry should come up with a policy to establish middle to small middle-scale factories to process agricultural produce so that we stop this idea of exporting raw materials to other countries. We export our tea in raw form. The Minister told us here yesterday that only a small percentage; about 4 per cent, is processed but the rest is exported raw and other countries use our tea to blend their own tea. This is a trend that we must stop if the farmers have to get good returns for the hard work that they are putting in. I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the tea farmers of Mudete Tea Factory in my area, to appeal to the Government through the Ministry of Agriculture to waive a loan they are servicing. When this factory was constructed in the early 1990s, we borrowed money through the Government. Farmers have been repaying this loan for close to the last 20 years and it is not coming to an end. I have seen it here that other farmers like the coffee farmers who had heavy loans, being waived by the Ministry. I request that on the same front, the Ministry considers to waive or to write-off the loan that is owed by the farmers of Mudete Tea Factory to the tune of Kshs200 million. It has become a very big burden to them. Every time we have farmers in the Republic earning their bonus, our farmers do not earn bonus. We are told that our bonus has been used to pay the loan that we owe. I know we have made this request formally to the Ministry of Agriculture but I thought I should take this opportunity on the Floor of this House, to request that this particular loan be waived. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, otherwise, we want to support the Minister as he implements the food security programme that he talked about yesterday. We think that, that is a very good programme that must be supported and fully funded by the Government. So, as he brings it to this House, we will support him. We also want to support him with the National Fertiliser Development Strategy Programme that he mentioned yesterday. I think this will alleviate the problems the farmer has been having with the prices of fertiliser. I want to urge my colleagues to support this Vote to give this Ministry the full and maximum support that they require so that the farmers of this country can benefit. With those few remarks, I support."
}