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{
    "id": 468376,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/468376/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 235,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Motion. I want to make two points. We must definitely support irrigation. Both agricultural and pastoral productivity need to go up and we all support that. The other issue that Sen. Elachi raised is how we should do it in practical terms and what lessons we should have learnt from what has been going on since Independence. A lot has been said here today. There is a model of agriculture in Kenya that worked extremely well during Independence and has continued to work well. However, this is not being replicated systematically. This is the contract farming which was applied in the KTDA where you have the concept of large scale farms which may run on intense capitalist basis; either by the state or the private sector. Attached to that are small scale farmers contractually engaged to produce commodities that are marketed together with what is produced in the large scale farms. This secures a market and guarantees the peasant producers of the market. It also guarantees good yields precisely because they are connected to the large scale farming in terms of technology and innovation. Peasant farmers, left by themselves, find it very difficult to innovate and use technology. That is known world over. We also know that we will have peasant farming for quite some time. This is the small scale production. This is not something like the Industrial Revolution in Europe, for example, where we will have an enclosure movement in Kenya where small scale farmers will be swallowed by big farmers and disappear. To me, that is something that may happen in future, but it will take a very long time. So, in the next foreseeable future, as we go towards fulfillment of Vision 2030, we have to contend with having large scale commercial farms to coexist with peasant production. But we cannot leave either peasant pastoralism or peasant agriculture to continue as it is today because it is not sustainable. In the final analysis, the stories we are told here today, of rain coming and flooding, peasants disappearing under the water with their houses and everything; this will continue. So, I would propose, whether it is to the Jubilee Government or Cord Government, that peasant contractual farming is attached to large scale commercial farming or large scale commercial pastoralism; this should be the model in Kenya. Even if you look at the success of the horticulture industry around Lake Naivasha, it is a very intense capitalist enterprise. If peasants were to engage themselves in cut flower production, they would have to attach themselves to such large scale commercial cut flower production in order to, one, access the market and, two, access the technology and also benefit from management skills, just like it happened in Mumias Sugar Mills. Mumias is successful because of that. Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, there are three crops which we should look at very carefully; maize, sugar and rice. These crops, particularly sugar and rice, are crops that can easily do very well in dry areas where you have pastoralism. This is because the soil in the dry areas becomes extremely fertile when it is irrigated, both for horticulture and 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."
}