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{
"id": 250142,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/250142/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Awori",
"speaker_title": "The Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 290,
"legal_name": "Moody Arthur Awori",
"slug": "moody-awori"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is time we considered farming as serious business. To do that, we need to upgrade the system of land tenure. We must mechanise our farming and the growing of cotton. For a long time, because of culture, there has been a system of land inheritance. You find someone who had 100 acres of land some 50 years ago cannot make use of that land because of sub-diving it into pieces for his sons. Today, most people own less than 10 to 15 acres. It is not possible for somebody to use modern methods of farming like tractors and tillers. I want to urge the Authority to encourage block farming. A group of people with 500 acres can come together and use tractors to till the land and plant crops. In most areas, people have title deeds. They know exactly how much they own. There should be no difficulties. For example, 5,000 farmers can use 10,000 acres for block farming. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Authority should encourage cotton farmers to borrow a leaf from the Kenya Tea Development Agency. Tea farmers own their crop through the process until marketing. I want to suggest that cotton becomes the same. I am going to be a little controversial. Farmers should own the cotton right from the beginning to the time it is marketed. We must cut out middle-men. We can do it gradually. It is time all cotton ginneries were owned by May 4, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 967 farmers. That is the way it was in the 1960s until people messed it up. We can correct mistakes that were made in the past. But the only way we can make sure that farmers get a fair price for their lint is to have a say in its marketing. That can only happen if all ginneries are owned by farmers. But because of mismanagement, many ginneries have been purchased by individuals. They did a good job by doing so. But now, we need financing to repossess those ginneries. When that is done, there will be no scramble for cotton. Cotton prices will stabilise. Farmers will take their cotton to their own ginneries. Every ginnery will have a guaranteed minimum price for the cotton. The ginneries will then gin the cotton and farmers will sell it to textile factories. When they do that, they will get a second payment. That will completely turn peasant farming into a business. Currently, with AGOA, we, as a country, are not benefiting very much, other than for the few people who have been employed in EPZs. But because we do not have much cotton in this country, we are importing cotton from Tanzania and from as far away as China. So, all we are doing is getting a few people employed in EPZs. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if the farmers owned their cotton, we would not stop at producing only lint. There would be an extension so that we could go into the textile industry ourselves and then, we could export. This will not only create employment but also reduce poverty and create wealth. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are tired of our people in the rural areas remaining poor and because they have remained poor, they have adopted the culture of handouts. We can save them from that and give them back their dignity. We would like our people to be self-reliant. When it becomes a business, it will also stem the migration of our people who are always heading for towns. We know what happens when they come into towns; jobs are few, social amenities are strained and, therefore, we create slums like Kibera, Kawangware, Mathare and many others. I firmly believe that if we can guide the production of cotton properly, we will then be creating industries in the rural areas. We should, therefore, meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is about time we decentralised industry in this country so that we can have what the Tanzanians tried to do, but did not do it properly; Ujamaa . We want smaller towns in the rural areas where we could create service jobs. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is important that all the representatives from cotton growing areas must be people who understand something about cotton. One of the reasons why the Cotton Management Board failed was because, I remember at one stage, the Chairman of that Board was someone who had never seen a cotton crop in his life. Similarly, even the Managing Director, someone called Mr. Tiampati, I was the one who showed him the crop when he visited Funyula. Now, how can you have a person like that as Managing Director? We need to look into that so that we get qualified people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I know this is an interesting subject to Members, especially those from cotton growing areas. I want to thank Dr. Ojiambo for bringing Bill. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}