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{
    "id": 363229,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/363229/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 179,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "other things; unless we fix our stomachs, security and health matters will not be fixed. Some people are sick, not because they lack medicine, but because they are hungry. When you look at the National Cereals and Produce Board, it is a large amorphous body. It is huge. In this era and age, we need an agency that will specialize only in procuring fertilizers. Without proper procuring of fertilizers and subsidy to our farmers, we will not be in the business of feeding this nation. Fifty years after Independence, we are still asking the international community for food handouts. You ask yourself: Are we really independent? China and India have fixed their agricultural policies and these countries have billions of people. If you look at Malawi, our neighbouring country, they no longer have hunger problems. They have fixed their agriculture. The only problem we have is that we have inverted our priorities. The entire agricultural sector is focused on the export of cash crops. You will realize that we export coffee, to which we do not add value, and at the same time, we import the same coffee that we have produced in Kenya. Time has come for this country to radically change. We need a radical surgery in the Ministry of Agriculture. We need radical thinking and a paradigm shift in our thinking if we are going to have meaningful development in this country. We all think things will happen. Albert Eeisteen said that if you think that you will do things in the same way all the time and expect different results, then you are insane. We want to transform this country. We want the 11th Parliament to show leadership in this country by changing many things. The President in his Address said that he wants to irrigate one million acres. That is very good, but are we doing practically what is required in this country? Are our agricultural officers motivated to do that? Are we really for it? This country is facing insecurity problems, which are related to food. When you are hungry and have no food, you have to think of how to eat. About 37 per cent of Kenyans sleep hungry. They have no food. Even more, when 37 per cent of Kenyans have no food and have not eaten the whole day, they raid into your homes. You will not have peaceful neighborhoods. Those are realities that we must accept. Unless we fix our hunger problems, we will not eradicate poverty. The other case in point is unemployment. This country is sitting on a time bomb. Most of Kenyans are now educated. They have gone to school. But most of them are idle in market centres with no jobs. We should improve our agricultural sector because it can create jobs for our people. At least, they can pick coffee, harvest maize, sell some products or be middlemen selling products. This country is the regional block. It is the fastest growing economy in East and Central Africa and in the Sub-Sahara except for the countries that produce oil. This country can go far and wide and do things better. About five million Kenyans depend on relief food and the figure is growing by the day. The amount of money we use to feed the people in Turkana and northern Kenya is enough to irrigate those areas and grow maize to help those communities. Time has come for us to support this initiative by hon. Wakhungu because at the end of the day, we are all Kenyans. We are one country. Hon. Wakhungu comes from a bread basket area, and I come from a very marginal area where there is no food; but if people in one area are hungry and others have opulence, nothing will move."
}