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{
    "id": 725154,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/725154/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 41,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ganya",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 18,
        "legal_name": "Francis Chachu Ganya",
        "slug": "francis-ganya"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to support the Livestock and Livestock Products Development and Marketing Bill. I rise to support the Bill and to compliment my colleague, Hon. Abdinoor Mohammed Ali, for bringing this very timely Bill to the House. The livestock sector in this country is poorly managed and governed. As a result, livestock farmers and pastoralists, some of whom some of us represent in this House, have been suffering for too long. We do not have a livestock policy in this country. Equally, there is hardly any livestock marketing strategy that is pursued by our Government and former Governments since Independence. The Livestock and Livestock Products Development and Marketing Bill will go a long way in streamlining the marketing of livestock and livestock products in our country to ensure that this poorly managed livestock sector will thrive as it does in Ethiopia, Botswana and many other countries. As I said before, there are no known livestock marketing policies in our country. That is why we do not have any organised livestock markets in our country today. Livestock farmers suffer at the hands of brokers or what we call middlemen in this country. They take their goats to Kariobangi and their cows to Dandora and a few other informal markets where these middlemen and brokers practically dictate the prices of the livestock and livestock products instead of the market forces dictating the fair price for our livestock products. That is why it is so critical that for once, we have a livestock law purposely geared towards issues of livestock marketing. Today, thousands of our livestock are dying because of drought simply because there are hardly any fair market prices for the livestock. That is why pastoralists are not selling their livestock. It is totally not true that pastoralists like rearing large herds of goats for emotional or other intrinsic or sentimental values. The fact of the matter is that there is hardly any fair price for livestock products in this country. In fact, in the northern part of Kenya, Marsabit County in particular, we sell most of our livestock across Ethiopia where we get better prices for our sheep, goats and even camels. The Ethiopians sell the same livestock at much better prices in Kuwait and most of the Middle Eastern and Arab countries. They are able to penetrate the markets where Kenya, even though we are supposed to be a more advanced economy, cannot penetrate simply because there is no political goodwill and the people tasked with the management of the livestock sector have been sleeping on the job for too long. It is unfortunate that the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) has been there since before Independence. Largely, it has been led and managed by pastoralists themselves, but unfortunately, it has not managed to save the livestock farmers from cartels and middlemen who have mismanaged the sector for too long. This Bill will provide a solution to this problem by creating a Livestock Products Development and Marketing Board, which will be responsible for livestock marketing in this country. It will mainstream the whole sector and issues related to livestock marketing. We will have a board that will be responsible for the management of this sector. It will range from marketing and ensuring that we have good markets locally and internationally for our livestock products. It will also ensure that we will have good regulations and policies to develop this sector and also lobby to make sure that this sector gets enough resources from the Government and all other key stakeholders for the livestock sector to thrive. If this board will be well-managed and well-resourced to undertake the roles and functions as provided in the Bill, this sector will be revived and will for sure thrive again. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. The livestock sector has been well-managed in many African countries. As I said, Botswana and many other South African countries are good 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."
}