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{
    "id": 363304,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/363304/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 254,
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    "content": "the year to prepare their land for farming, do all they can and invest in the farming process, but they will not get fertilizers in time. They get frustrated and they lose. Agriculture, being a sector that suffers diminishing returns, the Government should maintain vigilance and clear focus on helping the farmers not to suffer diminishing returns. A colleague talked about the yellow maize. That is the feature you find everywhere. At the beginning of the season, you will find that everyone has prepared his land and is ready to do the best with it, but this is not possible because the fertilizer is supplied late or is not accessible due to high prices. Sometimes, the unit converts this into a business venture that makes it impossible for the farmer to access the fertilizer. The total output from the farmer is a loss and this is very frustrating to farmers. We need urgent intervention by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Trade and Commerce. This is very urgent because we cannot allow people to incur losses after investing their fortunes in the farming industry. There is also the issue of middlemen. The middleman syndrome in Kenya must be dealt with. Middlemen will always hoard fertilizer and other farm inputs to frustrate the farmer. After the farmer has done his best and produced his crop, the middleman comes in. The culprit is usually the NCPB which wants to buy the produce at a throw away price. So, farmers incur losses all the time. As middlemen, they come back with the produce to sell to the poor Kenyans during famine. This becomes a continuous frustration to the innocent Kenyans. It is very important that we support this Motion and pass it with speed. We should insist that the established board be given responsibilities that will enable it to supervise the distribution of fertilizers and also provide the necessary extension support services to the farmers, so that the farmers can make good use of the fertilizer once they have received it. I want to support the proposal that the fertilizer processing factory should not be centralized. It should be established in all the counties where agriculture is practised. If it is centralised, we will still have the same frustration of distribution. We have experienced discrimination in not only distribution of the fertilizers but also in their pricing. The prices of fertilizers are not the same throughout the country. You find that the price of CAA fertilizer in the Rift Valley region is not the same as in the Western region or the Coast region. We should get rid of this discrimination. We should find a way of mitigating, if there are any costs in between because most of those who undertake farming are poor people who want to eke a living out of their small pieces of land. We should support them by subsidizing the prices of fertilizers as much as possible. If the proposed factory is established, it will provide employment opportunities. It will also provide opportunity for not only qualitative productivity but also quantitative productivity. We cannot have our children dropping out of school due to hunger when we can produce more. Children are dropping out of school due to hunger. We need to establish a school feeding programme from these good products. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, if we establish the proposed board and, subsequently, the factories, we will have synergy. Agriculture is a sector which embraces co-operation from other sectors. Therefore, we need an institution which will promote synergy amongst related sectors. Trade depends on agriculture also. Our traders get frustrated because they cannot get products from the farm. We have a lot of fallow land being wasted because we cannot provide farm implements. Therefore, I wish to suggest"
}