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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kombo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also stand to give my support to this Motion and thank the Ministry that it in fact has been long overdue. We have been independent for 50 years. When we were young people during the colonial times extension officers were a common fixture in the villages. Farmers would not do anything without consulting an extension officer; whether you were growing maize or potatoes. During those times a person like me was educated because my father was able to listen to the extension officer and be able to farm productively. I am not sure where the rain started beating us. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our economy largely depends on agriculture. Agriculture is the kingpin of this country. Eighty per cent of our population depends on agriculture. Therefore, to ensure that our agriculture grows, to ensure that we start producing efficiently in whatever we are producing from our soil, it is important to ensure that there is policy in place of ensuring that that there are extension officers to assist the farmers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the former speaker has just talked about value addition. It is important that if we want to push up this agricultural growth the issue of value addition is crucial. But value addition within our own country will become even more important if the farmers are producing enough produce to be turned into other products. To be able to do that we need to be able to produce for consumption and have surplus. Today due to lack of knowledge, poor husbandry and sometimes lack of fertilizers as it has been enumerated, the farmer ends up producing that which he can consume but nothing that he can use for value addition. So, efficiency through extension services will make sure that we produce enough for value addition. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the question of the private extension officers has been raised. Many times commercial farmers will come out and tell farmers, “grow this kind of crop or do this” without any consideration to the environment. If there are people who are talking about having poles for electricity, instead they will tell you to grow eucalyptus trees because they are interested in harvesting these trees to be able to sell to Kenya Power Company. But they do not think about what the eucalyptus trees will do to the environment, the water tables and so on and so forth. Within this policy we would like to make sure that these private extension commercial groups do not hurt our environment and also do not exploit the farmers. There was a case I saw in Bungoma where they came and asked farmers to grow French beans. People changed from growing sugar-cane and maize and rushed into growing French beans. In the end these characters disappeared from the district and farmers did not know where to sell the beans. So, we want the Government to be able to look into such groups that are likely to exploit farmers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, coffee farming in the part of the world where I come from is becoming extremely important. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as people in Central Province convert their coffee farms into real estate, we, in Bungoma, are turning to coffee growing. Kenya was known as a country that grew a lot of coffee. I am, however, afraid that there is no support or encouragement from the Ministry. So, the people are on their own. So, as we talk about this policy, I would like us to ask the Ministry to actually start looking at this country and identifying regions in terms of the kinds of crops they can produce. If coffee is now the in-thing for Bungoma County, the Ministry should put emphasis on the same. Coffee is still an important crop for the economy of this country. It is still our black gold. Last year, coffee prices were extremely high on the world market but Kenya did not benefit much because many people in the coffee growing areas have turned their land into real estate. So, the Ministry should know which areas can produce what. In Bungoma, we can also grow a lot of cotton. We are looking for support and knowledge on what we should do. We now talk of reviving our ginneries, so on and so forth. We can revive the ginneries but if there is no cotton being grown, we will not be industrialising those areas at all. We need the Ministry to look into all these things, including dairy farming, and support the farmer to make sure that we move forward. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}