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{
    "id": 527504,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/527504/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 176,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Board (NCPB) and the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC). A farmer who did not even have money could go and pledge his credit at the KFA and get fertiliser. He or she would harvest his crops and in good faith deliver it to the NCPB. The NCPB would already have your credit notes from KFA; they will pay off your liability and give you your net. Today, those of us who come from farming counties, sympathize with the plight of the farmer. There is no research back-up even as we have the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and other research institutions; the farmer is left to himself. Even crooks that come with concoctions that are not fertiliser still label them and sell to farmers as fertiliser. A farmer will just go and buy something labeled DAP without knowing whether it is DAP or not. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in many countries in America and Europe and all over, the Government helps the farmer by constantly carrying out research and even advising the farmer on the components of the fertiliser that he or she should use on his or her particular parcel of land because of the alkaline content, the rain pattern and so on. The Kenyan farmer has no such facility. Even when the last Government started a knee jerk programme of subsidizing the farmer with fertiliser, it was completely rotten with corruption and mismanagement. Fertiliser that is meant to be given to the poor of the poor is in fact given to the rich of the rich. The poor of the poor remain there. Fertiliser is imported by the Government meant for the one and two acre land holders but you find that fertiliser in the shops of big traders being sold when the Government has said that the subsidy will retail it at Kshs1,500. Corrupt Government officials sell the whole of it or a large portion to traders who then sell to the intended recipients of that fertiliser at Kshs2,500 which is the market price. Therefore, the farmer is caught in a wave that is so vicious and yet these are the people who feed our rapidly growing population. Even as there is excitement in this country of the recent discoveries of extractive materials, what now the World Bank calls the extractive industry, oil and other precious and non-precious minerals, we must not forget that Kenya and Kenyans must remain committed to the ability and the capacity to feed themselves. We should not go the direction of our brothers in Nigeria who upon discovery of oil; a country that was a vibrant farming country started importing tomatoes from Israel which is a desert. We should never go that way. We can only do this if there is a clear properly defined and managed policy on how to empower the farmer. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, fertiliser input is not locally produced although there is a company called Athi River Mining that is now attempting to produce a popular fertiliser brand called Mavuno which I am told is doing pretty well in terms of countering the alkalinity in the soil that has all along been accumulated by DAP and UREA. Be that as it may, we must have a structured way involving stakeholders as the Bill suggests on when and how to import, retail and distribute fertiliser to the farmer. This is because we have noticed even when the little subsidy that we talk about comes, sometimes it arrives at the end of the rainy season. Then it is handed over to the farmer who will have very little to do with it. By talking about fertiliser, we are not limiting ourselves to food crops like maize, although that is very fundamental because that is what feeds the nation. We have other crops that also consume fertilisers; sugar, tea and coffee, all these must be 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"
}