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{
    "id": 334119,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/334119/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 273,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "not put much back in terms of the scientific knowledge I acquired. But in terms of serving the country, it is courtesy of KARI because I have been an employee of KARI. I also occupy a very special place in KARI in the sense that I was one of the very few social scientists that were trained in order to give support to biological scientists in KARI. So, anything to do with agricultural research is of special interest to me. I like the new arrangement. We used to have too many organizations dealing with research, especially food research and food security. One of the problems we used to have was that what you call the agricultural research per se. I am glad the Crops Bill passed the Second Reading. I did not want to contribute to it because when I took a course in BSC agriculture, I was told that the only crops I could grow in Turkana are what we call the poor crops. That is sorghum, millet and then the real crops which are grown from my good neighbour with that middle name which begins with “N” which has been descovered by Mrs. Odhiambo-Mabona are the important ones. They have their own research institute for tea and coffee. But when it came to that cow that the pastoralist is chasing and tilling for it which is of no value, there was no research whatsoever. I want to believe that with this independent organization, the way it has been structured and with these various institutes dealing with specific things as per the Second Schedule, then we will ensure that each of the commodities that we will be researching on as a country, we will get its prominence. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am also a student of policy. When I took a study of two major commodities in this country, the dairy cow, the maize, they seem to define what you call agriculture in this country. Food security in Kenya is defined by maize production. We have killed the rest of the crops just because of this emphasis. Our biological scientists are still researching on better crops even when the mandate of KARI is very clear; your mandate is to ensure that we research in order to produce appropriate technologies that the uptake by the farmer, the small holder can be as near to 100 per cent at possible. You will appreciate that by the time I was active in research, our biological scientists were researching hybrids of H525. The poor farmer in Western Kenya was still planting Hybrid 614. So, you could see our scientists are pushing lineage which we have no problem with in terms of experimenting knowledge, but that is where the business of the National Agricultural Research system, extending the frontiers of knowledge is the busines of universities where Prof. Kamar is. For you as the Minister of Agriculture and all these organizations doing research, your job is to produce appropriate technologies that can increase food production that will ensure this country is food secure; a policy that the Government is committed to and a policy that this Government and the previous ones have failed. I hope the next Government will make a difference. Dr. Otichilo has raised a more fundamental in agricultural research, that is funding. Even this Bill has agricultural research fund. This fund is supposed to get some money to the individual scientists to be able to do work that they believe will contribute to food production. But you will find that the amounts allocated to the individual scientists is in the region of Kshs300,000 or Kshs500,000. What can you do with that kind of money? Look at their counterparts in America and Europe. A researcher is a respected person. A researcher is given a very serious grant by the university or the agricultural organization that he or she works in. They can invest and breed better crops to enhance the productivity of both the animals and crops. I am excited that with this kind"
}