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{
    "id": 654179,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/654179/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 121,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. F.K. Wanyonyi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2065,
        "legal_name": "Ferdinard Kevin Wanyonyi",
        "slug": "ferdinard-kevin-wanyonyi"
    },
    "content": "to have those kinds of trees. This Bill has come at the right time. I want to take this opportunity to thank those who came up with the idea of this Bill so that we can have the Plant Genetic Resources Research Centre. My children and grandchildren will not know what happened 80 or 90 years ago. The trees that I saw those days were able to form a forest cover. In fact, we had a large forest cover and every rainy season we had enough rains. Today, we do not even know when it is going to rain because we do not have forest cover. Secondly, those days there were few hospitals. I remember when we had a bout of malaria or pneumonia, my grandfather - let his soul rest in peace - would not ask me to go to the hospital because there were no hospitals. All there were was medicine extracted from trees. We would be given a mixture of varieties of trees to drink. In the afternoon, we would be alright, able to go back to school or to look after cattle. Today, we have to go to hospital, but we do not even know where the medicine in the hospital comes from. By having these plant varieties protected under this Bill, I am very sure that we will have documentary evidence. If somebody extracts leaves, barks or roots of a tree, it will be documented and we will be able to know. By the same token, we will be able to get money from their activities. When you took cattle to graze in some far distance, you did not have to go back home to eat lunch. You would just eat fruits from some trees and go home. As somebody from Mombasa has mentioned, my grandfather died at the age of 131 years. None of us in this House will go that far; nobody. Even if you are a doctor or whoever, you cannot go up to 100 years. That includes me. These are people who ate natural food and they were very healthy and strong. As I was walking in, my manager called to tell me about 10 people who have died in my constituency. They have died at an early age and it is because of the types of food we eat, which is not natural. I am saying this because I would eat millet food mixed with cassava when I visited my grandmother and it was very delicious. It did not need chicken to eat with. It was cassava mixed with millet or wimbi. It made very nice flour. When one ate it, he or she became very strong. If you had porridge made from that flour in the morning, you would go until evening. This Bill must be passed as fast as possible so that those indigenous products are re- established and we have a centre to protect their ownership. In America, there is a centre that is trying to get some of these plants from Africa. They go with them and come up with results of whatever research. They come up with medicine or food that they sell to Africa. The centre will create value for the communities that own those products. There are trees that could be growing very well in Nyanza and not in Eastern Province and so the people in Eastern Province will get benefits from the plants and seeds that they do not have. We do not have seeds for some plants like the cassava you see. This is because you plant cassava using cuttings. I am told and also saw it at my grandmother’s place that they did not have seeds. You just made a cutting and planted. I asked my daughter’s child whether she can plant a potato and she told me to give her the seed. We have such kind of things. We have to go back to our old days. This is a Bill that will help us in that. Lastly, I want to agree that we have very many exotic plants. I do not know where they were discovered. It may be Europe, America or wherever else. Although we have these plants in the country, we are not sure of their food content. We should go back to our original state. I want some of us to take uji made from cassava, wimbi and millet in the morning. If you come here after taking that porridge, you will not take lunch. You will stay satisfied the whole day because that is the original food. But again, if we do not do it now, we will have to eat the junk foods that we see. I am sorry to say that there are people out there whose children who are 13 years old The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}