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{
    "id": 392095,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/392095/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 108,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "toned down. I want to support what my elder brother, Sen. No.1, G.G. Kariuki said here. This is not a House of lamentations but a House of national solutions. The moment a Senator stands next to a microphone, the whole country watches to see what solutions he has to the problems of agriculture, insecurity and others that Kenyans are grappling with. This is not a House of lamentations, name calling and other little things. The more we come out as a House of solutions, the more we entrench ourselves as a House with a national reflection and one that can offer hope as we move forward. I want to support and say that these two industries used to provide a lot of employment opportunities especially in providing rural employment. When coffee and tea were doing well, the problem of unchecked urbanisation was under control. However, the moment these industries collapsed, very many youth who would have been retained in rural areas productively moved to towns. Those who are not in towns are idling along highways. That is very dangerous for the future of our country. When you drive around the country, you see many young people sitting by the roadside doing nothing. This is because some of the small-scale farmers were forced to cut down their coffee. As recently as two years ago, tea plantations were also cut down. The reasons for this have been captured well in the Motion although in a different form. The first reason is that if we give the kind of support that we give maize farmers, for instance, this would go a long way in strengthening our cash crop sector. As much as we need food crops, we also need to strengthen cash crops. So, I want to agree that the provision of subsidized fertilizer which is available to maize farmers should be extended to coffee and tea farmers as well, if we are to revive this industry. One other thing - and this is where Government policies can help - is that it has become extremely expensive to process tea leaves. Some of the factories that process tea leaves operate with generators because of insufficient and unreliable power supply. This is also a disincentive because at the end of the day, there is a way in which that cost has an implication on the total cost of production of our tea and that also affects the competitiveness in overseas markets and also affects the bonus that the farmers are paid. So, if we had cheaper energy, it would really help in terms of the returns that farmers get from tea and coffee. On the question of energy, I am happy to say that the Jubilee Government has put in place a very ambitious energy modernization project which anticipates that the energy output that has been available in the country since Independence which is slightly below 2000 megawatts, which is about 1.6 gigawatts---. The intention of the Jubilee Government is that by 2017, this will be increased to 5,000 megawatts. If this is achieved, it will go a long way in stabilizing the energy issue which is one of the most expensive components of the production process, especially for coffee. Madam Temporary Speaker, the Motion also speaks about mechanisation of the industry. I have also heard from farmers that blind mechanization can have negative effects on employment creation in this industry. Therefore, as much as mechanisation is important, we also want to require that it is consistent with the policies and objectives of the country for job creation."
}