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{
    "id": 380285,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/380285/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 71,
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    "content": "Unfortunately, at that time livestock was separated from crop and labeled as a non- essential sector. Therefore, it was turned to the communities. The impact was that the livestock sector fell apart including immunization, hiring of veterinary doctors and paravets, artificial insemination and the institutions that were training vets, including Kabete University were least funded. This led to the decline in the industry. It is during the time of the Kibaki Government in 2003 to last year that, actually, the livestock sector was looked at and vets started being hired. Prior to this, all institutions like the New Kenya Co-operative Creameries (KCC), the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) and all the research institutions were not funded and therefore, all had collapsed but during this period they were revived. We started looking at how we can move forward. The dairy sector in those ten years made a major progress from 2 billion litres in 2002 to 6 billion litres per year last year where we surpassed our local consumption and were able to export about 2 million litres every year. The beef sector had major challenges because KMC was far away and this is where I congratulate Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki when he said that we need to do abattoirs, as did the Mover of this Motion. Where coffee is grown the factory is placed within reach and so is for tea but for meat, KMC is far removed from where the animals are being reared. Therefore, animals have to be transported all the way to Nairobi. The disaster you saw where animals died at the gate of KMC is because the factory is far away and it was the only one actually. Right now we have a programme which I am hoping the Jubilee Government is moving on with, where there are ten export abattoirs. I want to make this very clear to Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki, because he said that we need to have abattoirs everywhere. There are specific abattoirs; there are local and export abattoirs. Export abattoirs have to meet certain standard specifications. There are check lists for phytosanitary standards. It is very expensive to put up one and if you meet all those standards, then it means you can export from that abattoir. I think the Mover is talking about such abattoirs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, there is a concept I left because we may have abattoirs but the local people do not have the network to export the meat. So, we have devised a system where the communities have to form co-operatives and then an investor who has a market network is attracted to the abattoirs where the local people are charged with the responsibility of the necessary husbandry and input to bring their livestock to the quality that is required by the market. The investor then will partly own the abattoir. So, the marriage is made between the co-operative formed by farmers and the investor. This is also augmented by having international airports like the one in Isiolo. We are going to open the one in Isiolo in August. This will be an example on how to run these abattoirs well. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding dairy farming, it is not about expanding volumes. What we realized in areas like Kabianga and other milk producing areas is that there is cluster economy developing around this milk cooling plants. There are other inputs that develop alongside like fertilisers, artificial insemination and so on. In a place like this, small shopping centres come up and you will find the economy of that community around that cooling plant growing. This includes bars where wazees go when they get money from the milk. They do not go to drink in Eldoret but Kabianga and the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}