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{
    "id": 526379,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/526379/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 211,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The Bill brings in the issue of marketing which has been a big challenge. You will find that when you go to the market and when farmers are about to harvest potatoes, brokers are the ones who go to the farms. The farmers pack their potatoes in bags of between 90 kilogrammes to 110 kilogrammes. However, buyers buy the bags at a very low price. At the end of the day, farmers do not get the profits from their potatoes. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this Bill comes in to help the county governments to ensure that their cash crops are respected. We have to respect what farmers have gone through to ensure that we have potatoes. If the brokers want to buy potatoes at the price of a 50 kilogrammes bag, then the potatoes should be packed and sold in 50 kilogrammes bags. The sad part about the potatoes industry is that nobody will ever understand why a 90 kilogrammes bag is sold as if it is a 50 kilogrammes bag. The person who benefits is the broker. You will find that most people do not want to invest in potato farming but prefer to be brokers. The other issue is that today, our potatoes are almost the best. There are the Irish potatoes which are even exported. There is a big price difference after the broker has bought the potatoes. A 200 kilogrammes bag can be sold for Kshs250 but once the same potatoes get to Nairobi, they are sold at Kshs700. Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki of Nyandarua is trying to address the disparities and to ensure that the price of potatoes is stable just like coffee and tea. The potatoes can also be packaged better. We have people who have come up with more innovative ways of doing it. They peel the potatoes, make them into chips and sell them that way. The Government should come in and ensure that young people get more investment in this. The young people should use this industry to improve their lives. It is sad to see that in Nyandarua, the infrastructure is also very poor. The brokers there take advantage of that and say that their lorries use bad roads to pick the potatoes. When it is raining, farmers have to also go through a lot of challenges. They end up selling their potatoes very cheaply. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the other issue which is very challenging is marketing. This is the most challenging thing. Many people take advantage of the low prices and go to the rural areas where they buy potatoes very cheaply and then go back to their small kiosks and restaurants in towns to make chips and sell them very expensively. We also have other restaurants that import the same potatoes. This is because we have not come up with a way of protecting what we have. How do we ensure that farmers in any rural area today are taken care of? How do we ensure that the seedlings that they get will enable them get the best produce? The other issue that people fear is the seedlings. You will buy the best seedlings, however, not every farmer today understands how to go to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to get the seedlings. Therefore, the other thing we are saying is that while we are doing marketing, this Bill is to also ensure KARI empowers farmers that are growing potatoes. Prof. Kabira has done the best potato research in this country and their potatoes are good. However, most likely, a farmer in Oloitokitok will not know that there is a new seedling that is coming up. In terms of diseases, how do we ensure that while we are planting those potatoes – today we have different diseases even in maize – the farmers know what type of fertilizer they can use for them to now say that they have a potato that they can put in the market? 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."
}