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"id": 182156,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Ndambuki",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Agriculture",
"speaker": {
"id": 191,
"legal_name": "Gideon Musyoka Ndambuki",
"slug": "gideon-ndambuki"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to support this Vote. From the outset, I would like to thank the Minister and the entire Ministry for maintaining a good record, and the write-up that has been presented to this House. We know that if there is a October 28, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3047 Ministry that goes through a lot of problems, it is the Ministry of Agriculture. You can tell this by the Questions which we get in this House. A day never passes without a Question to the Ministry of Agriculture. This is evidence of the kind of problems we face. There are so many Ministries, which get a lot of money compared to the Ministry of Agriculture, yet this is the only Ministry that can help this country to put food on the table at an affordable price. If given enough funding and support, I can assure you that, with the personnel and the know-how the Ministry has, we can change things in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you go to the Ministry and look at what they have done, although it has not been quite passed over to the Kenyan citizens, you will notice that they have done great. When it comes to research, the Ministry with its stakeholders have done a wonderful job of multiplying seeds. We cannot meet the demand of the seeds. I am sure that you are a witness to this because I was talking to you about seeds. We are unable to meet the demand for seeds in Kenya. For us to close that gap, this Ministry needs a lot of money. The Ministry needs to be given money for research which is going to be channelled to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) which has really helped this country, although many people do not know that. Although its land in various stations has been grabbed, it has continued to do great. Of late, KARI has come up with many different types of seeds which are weather and disease resistant. Others are early maturing seeds which lead to higher yields, for example, of potatoes and cassava. If you see what they have done with cassava, you cannot believe it because they have come up with a fast maturing type of cassava which leads to high yields. You can harvest 40 tonnes of cassava from one hectare using this seed type. They have also gone further and come up with what they call value addition to this cassava. You can eat chapati, mandazi or ugali made from cassava. These are the kind of things that we need more money to invest in. I am sure we will be able to minimise the problem of famine that we have been facing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is interesting when you hear most of the hon. Members here talk of only two types of foods which are maize and beans. That is why we have famine year in, year out. We have forgotten other crops like millet, sorghum, cow peas and many others. If we could encourage our people to plant some of them, we would solve the problem of famine. They do not need a lot of rain to mature. As Members of this House, we should advise our farmers not to concentrate on maize and beans only but plant other crops which are really favourable in our areas. The Ministry has even go further to sell fertiliser at subsidised rates. This is the first time it is happening. If you go to town to buy fertiliser, you will find that they are selling Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertiliser at Kshs6,600 per bag. No farmer can afford this price. However, now, the fertiliser that is coming will be sold at under Kshs4,000 and this is really a great reduction. That element of reduction is going to be borne by the Government. So, we really need to support this Ministry by asking the Government to allocate it more money so that we can address food security in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like this Ministry to have a demonstration farm in every constituency. Some of the demonstration farms are too far that they cannot be reached by many people. If a single demonstration farm could be located in every constituency, many people would visit it and learn at the same time. Even our students would visit such farms and learn. We can use these demonstration farms also for seed multiplication because we need a lot of seed to fight famine that has been ravaging this country. The Ministry has also really tried with some interventions. For example, the other day, we had Kshs3.2 billion which is supposed to be borrowed by cereal growers and dealers of fertiliser. These are some of the interventions to make farming easier for our farmers because they cannot 3048 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 28, 2008 access money to buy fertiliser at the current market prices. It is true that we have been having field days. Since I came to this Ministry, I have gone to more than 20 field days but they are not enough. We need to have many more field days so that our farmers can see the different kinds of crops and seeds they can plant in their areas. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue we need to deal with, is the one of fake seeds. The Kenya Plant and Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) has really tried to reduce the number of fake seeds. We know that some years back, our farmers bought fake seeds, chemicals and fertilisers but KEPHIS has reduced some of these instances. For example, the organisation has come up with an emergency number and I would like hon. Members to note it down so that they can inform their farmers what kind of maize seed is favourable in their areas. It is a very simple number. You can send a Short Message Service (SMS) to either Celtel or Safaricom by using the following procedure: \"Maize#(hush) and then you write your division and send it to 2964 and you will be given a list of all types of maize seeds which can be grown in your own division. This is one way and we are also trying to encourage KEPHIS to even do more more with other crops so that we can really fight these fake seed sellers. We have also increased our investigations and dealings with seed growers. We need to also come up with regulations to control these seed growers because the multiplication of seeds is on the increase and we want to make sure that we get seeds of high quality and resistant to some of the diseases. We can only do that if this Ministry is given enough funding and facilitated. The extension officers should be able to move from one place to another. I thank the Ministry because most of our extension officers can now move from point \"a\" to \"b\" to do their work. You can now seen them in uniforms. You can identify them from a crowd of people. They are also motivated. So, I would like hon. Members to make use of these officers. You should visit and invite them to your constituencies. Until we as leaders start farming, our people will not take it seriously. We have to take it seriously. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}