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{
    "id": 391385,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/391385/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 208,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Khaniri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 171,
        "legal_name": "George Munyasa Khaniri",
        "slug": "george-khaniri"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir for according to me, the opportunity to make my remarks on this Motion. I will be very brief. I listened on radio as Sen. Muthama moved this Motion, and I listened to my colleagues who made their contributions yesterday on the same Motion, and I want to say that most of the points that I had were well covered by the Mover and my colleagues who spoke earlier and, therefore, I do not want to risk repeating. Let me begin by thanking Sen. Muthama for bringing this important Motion and I think if it is implemented, we are going to address the problems that are facing our tea and coffee farmers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I come from a coffee and tea growing county. My parents were coffee and tea farmers. I am now a tea farmer. Therefore, I fully understand the predicament that these farmers face. This Motion as put captures the concerns and needs of our farmers back in the counties where tea and coffee is grown. As I said earlier, when I was born, I found my parents farming tea and coffee. However, over the years, they uprooted the coffee trees. I was young when they did this. I came to learn much later that the reason they did this was because it was no longer profitable to engage in coffee farming. They could not even break even. My mum still struggles with tea farming, but I guess she just does it for passion. There is nothing she gets from tea farming. I do not think she even gets the amount of money that we put in every year. She has done this for many years and, therefore, thinks she should just continue doing it. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is a shame that for all these years the successive governments have failed to come up with policies that will ensure that farmers benefit from their farming activities. Tea and coffee remains the biggest foreign exchange earner for our economy. Farmers are losing a lot to the middle men. They are cheated and get raw deals in the international market. The biggest beneficiary becomes the middlemen and maybe the Government because of the foreign exchange that these crops bring in. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is no doubt, as put by the Mover of the Motion, that Kenyan coffee and tea is the best in the world market. For those of us who have travelled, we know that in most countries in Europe and Asia, they use our tea and coffee to blend their poor quality coffee. But the sad thing is that even after they do that, it does not sell as Kenyan tea. It sells as, for example, Singapore, Sri Lanka or Belgium tea. This is really a sad state of affairs, it is a shame. 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."
}