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{
    "id": 526443,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/526443/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 275,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "to congratulate Eng. Muriuki for being a faithful farmer and a representative of potatoe farmers. I want to congratulate him because this is one Bill that is integral to the functioning of the Senate because Senate is here to debate Bills that concern counties. That definition emanates from the functions that are given to counties. If there is a function that is heavily given to the county governments in the allocation of functions under the Fourth Schedule of our Constitution, agriculture is key among them. Apart from agricultural policy which is left as a national function, all other functions related to agriculture are a function of county governments. Therefore, this Bill is here for a good reason. As I listened to Sen. Hassan Omar, I heard him point out the objectives in Section 3 which are very noble. The key issue here is to deal with regulating production, packaging, processing and marketing of potatoes. I listened to Sen. Wetangula speak very well about how the packaging is done. I do not know how my colleague and a Member of the Committee on Devolved Government, the father of CDF forgot to list Elegeyo- Marakwet as one of the main producers of potatoes. I was not here when he moved the Bill but this is not also listed in the Bill. We have a lot of potatoes in Elgeyo-Marakwet County. Every time I look at how they package the potatoes to transport them to where Sen. Ndiema comes from, particularly Kitale, Kachibora and Uasin Gishu, you will be surprised. A person will tell you that they are selling one bag of potatoes. However, this is normally a combination of two bags of 90 kilogrammes being used as the measurement for one bag of potatoes. The Elgeyo-Marakwet County passed a law to ensure that the packaging is 50 kilogrammes. That has helped the farmers from that region. I saw my Governor, very excited, weighing potatoes of 50 kilogrammes somewhere in Lelan Ward where we produce a lot of potatoes. The key issue here should be protection of farmers just as the Senator for Mombasa has said. His county is listed as the leading in the consumption of potatoes. Be it as it may, I have certain structural and constitutional questions to ask the Committee on Agriculture and my friend, Eng. Muriuki. The first thing is that we have the National Potatoe Council. What does this Council stand for especially regarding matters related to the regulations being given to a national entity? Considering that the Fourth Schedule has already pointed this as a county function, are we not running the risk of clawing back a function that has already gone to the county? Every county should be left under the County Governments Act to find a regulatory mechanism for the regulation of that function. My interpretation of what could be a function under the Constitution is standardization. This has to do with providing for standards and so forth. However, in the daily functioning, as it is provided here, the council is cascaded to operate within the local level with committees. What happens to the committees if the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries in the counties have their own structures of managing agriculture and the sector of potatoes in a certain county? The Committee should think through those issues. 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."
}