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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am also seconding it. In seconding the Motion, I would like to state that it is long overdue. Therefore, I would like to urge the hon. Members to support it. We have economic goals in this country and it is the duty of this august House to support all initiatives towards economic growth and development. This is one way of doing it. When the Minister for Finance read his Budget Speech, he talked about economic growth. But, unfortunately, the growth is skewed towards certain sectors of the economy, while some have been left behind. One of them is the cashew nuts industry. Cashew nuts has had the misfortune of being one of only two crops in Kenya which were titled \"scheduled crops\" from 1992 up to two or three years ago. The title of \"scheduled crops\" meant that only one company could buy the products at a price that it determined. The other crop is bixa. The reason is that these companies were owned by very powerful people at the time. But there is a Swahili saying, werevuukizidi unakuwa ujinga. They kept the prices so low that the people started uprooting the trees and the sector collapsed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, one way of ensuring economic growth is to do what Mr. Odongo Omamo used to call \"producing king-size.\" But we have constraints of land, labour, July 5, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1815 capital and other things. So, the only way to increase production is to add value to the raw products, not only by physically processing the material, but also being more sophisticated in marketing and branding and other things that add value. Even the cotton sub-sector could benefit from such an approach by not only selling raw cotton but we should gin, spin and weave it and produce the clothes, brand them and advertise. This way, you create employment and improve incomes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this crop has suffered so much and it should be rescued. One way of doing this is to ensure that the law provides for value addition. For example, in the lake side they have export rate growth through fish, in up country here they have the horticultural, coffee and tea, and we also need some export rate growth along the Coast as well. One way of doing it is to have value added to the cashew nut production. If we did that it will generate foreign exchange for our country and in that way our shilling will become strong and increase our purchasing power. In this way, the poverty issue will be dealt with completely. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as things stand now, cashewnut is exported raw, to the detriment of the Kenyan economy. Something needs to be done to encourage people to export the finished product. We also need to put in place disincentives or sanctions for exporting of the raw material because it does not help us much. Previously, the approach has been to tax raw exports. Unfortunately, the exporters have been passing on the cost of the tax to the farmers. So, instead of the farmers gaining, they have been losing heavily. Therefore, we are very much in favour of this Motion and farmers will be very grateful. When we pass this Motion and the Bill is enacted into law, the farmers will be very happy. Increased production and export will alleviate poverty and farmers will be able to settle their various pending bills. With those remarks, I beg to second."
}