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{
    "id": 381569,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/381569/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 66,
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    "content": "those in Dagoreti came up. But later on, people started going into the holding grounds and segmenting them into small plots. That is how Ngong grew to the way it is now; to an extent that you cannot even remember where the slaughter house was. That is exactly how Ongata Rongai also started. It started with two slaughter houses which do not exist as of today. If you go to Kiserian the situation is the same. The few slaughter houses that are there are surrounded by small plots. As a result, the lives of pastoralists who are used to keeping animals and selling animal products are threatened. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if the Government is serious, it should protect such individuals who have been working very hard. These are people who have been taking loans from the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) and repaying them. Sometimes, they are unable to repay those loans because when they buy the animals and take them to areas that are not disease free zones, most of them end up dying. I support the introduction of disease free zones all over the country. Take the example of very common diseases which affect even children. They include diabetes and cancer. These diseases could be on the rise maybe because of the kind of animal products that we are taking. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will give an example of how easy it is to make the unemployed become very rich through the livestock sector. Any pastoralist with between 100 and 200 head of cattle will have another 100 or 200 head of cattle in a year’s time since they will have given birth. If they are well taken care of and they do not die, within two years they can sell some of those animals, each of which will be sold at about Kshs30,000. Therefore, if that person sells 100 animals, he will get Kshs3 million. If it is 200 animals, he will get about Kshs6 million. That is actually the best way of even preventing the youth from coming to the urban centres. They can concentrate in the rural areas and stop thinking that the easiest way of getting a job is by going to the urban areas. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this industry has really been neglected to the extent that a veterinary doctor is not recognized like a medical doctor. In fact, we know the qualifications for one to become a veterinary doctor and medical doctor are the same. But the veterinary doctors appear as if they do not have work to do, simply because there is no good mechanism of appreciating their services. They end up being hired by individuals who are suffering financially and the AFC wants to sell their land. The Government is not actually even availing vaccines at good prices. You will find that the veterinary doctors themselves feel degraded. Therefore, I call upon particularly the Jubilee Government to give the livestock industry the seriousness that it deserves. We should protect our land, so that we do not necessarily subdivide it into very small pieces. If this Government becomes very serious about this industry, we can turn our economy into double digits. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I support this Motion."
}