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"id": 194823,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Jirongo",
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"legal_name": "Cyrus Khwa Shakhalaga Jirongo",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. Let me also take this opportunity to thank Mr. Wamalwa for having come up with this Motion. As much as I am supporting the Motion, there seems to be certain issues that we have failed, as a Government and Parliament, to put in place to turn farming into a viable business. In this country, when there is over-production of maize, the prices go down drastically. The following year when there is a shortage, the prices of the same crops skyrockets. It means that it is very difficult to have farming in this country as a viable business. Any business that incurs a loss only once in a year and needs salvage, it shows that, that business has a problem. It shows that it is founded on the wrong footing. In this country, generally, farming has been neglected. It has been neglected because you will find loans offered to our farmers by the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) are annual loans, particularly those for production of cereals. Annual loans highly dependent on the prices at the end of the year. At the time the AFC extends loans and the prices of the crops go down, the farmer naturally is incapable of repaying that loan. Of course, the farmer will not be able to produce the following year. This means that this country needs to look at its policies for farmers much more deeply. In a place like the USA, the Government goes out of its way to purchase crops from its farmers when there is over-production. That helps in sustaining proper pricing so that the farmer realises some profit. This country literally has left the farmer at the mercy of unscrupulous businessmen who depend on the law of supply and demand. The other area that has totally been neglected is the livestock area. When the ADC was set 882 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 7, 2008 up, it was meant to provide infrastructure for the farmer. The entire North Eastern Province and the dry areas of the Rift Valley can be turned into productive land if they were provided with water. To purchase land in Trans Nzoia today is about Kshs300,000 per acre. For places like the North Eastern Province, if we invested only Kshs100,000 in drip irrigation system per acre, you will turn that land into viable land as the one we have in Trans Nzoia. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other area which has lagged behind is that we seem to be doing research for the sake of it. During agricultural shows, when you go around this country, you will find production per acre, while being demonstrated by our scientists to be extremely high, but when you go to the real production, you will wonder what is happening. It means that the investment in our research in this country is not being translated to help the farmer. The research is not being taken to the field. We need only to provide water to the Coast Province and food production in this country will improve greatly. We only need to provide water to the North Eastern Province and this country will be exporting livestock products. The ADC needs to do what it was created to do. It has turned into a farming institution. The only thing the ADC does today is to plough its farms in Kitale and produce maize instead of providing irrigation systems to these arid areas and ensuring that we have water to expand the area of production in this country. Land has become a major problem in this country, yet we hardly use any portion of our land. The areas that are favoured with water only are where we have concentrated our activities. These institutions need to be turned into viable institutions. The Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) and the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) need to be viable institutions. They can only be viable institutions if the Government comes up with a system to ensure that the farmer is well-paid, and that we produce pastures for our pastoralists and that when we have drought, it does not have to affect the whole country. Most of the waters of this country drain into the Indian Ocean. The rest of it goes to Lake Victoria and ends up in the Mediterranean Sea. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Agriculture, and its institutions, can form a basis of transforming the economy of this country, because farming does not need a lot of technical input to be productive. Farming requires water and marketing and that will turn every Kenyan into a productive citizen. As we support this Motion, we also want the Ministry of Agriculture to be serious, and look at the vast lands in this country and realise that every Kenyan needs support, so that he or she could be productive and be useful to this country . With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}