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{
    "id": 767220,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/767220/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 210,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "have seen in our country the great impact of climate change and mostly on our pastoralist communities or those counties with a majority of pastoralists. When I was listening to her, she was mostly talking of the North Eastern parts of Kenya and this problem is not only confined to that region but also to all other arid areas in this country. Climate change has really hit the pastoralists due to shortened or lack of rains. This has also resulted in the conflicts we see in Kenya today. We have seen the conflicts in Laikipia the other day, among the Maasai of Kenya and the government of Tanzania and also across other counties like what my other colleague was talking about Taita. Most of the time, we have conflicts between the Maasais and the Taitas and all other pastoralist yearning to graze their livestock in the national parks. When we talk of the implementation of the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) Act, 2016, we should not only talk about the implementation of this Act of 2016, but we should also talk about even moving that Authority to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. I think in the first place, it is misplaced because we factor or give a lot of money to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and other small monies to these Authorities which seem not to have the capacity to come up with ways of mitigating drought. I was reading a newspaper last week and I read somewhere where the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock &Fisheries is factoring Kshs5 billion to add value to the food sector. I was really thinking how you add value to food that is not there in the first place. You need first to have food, then you think of adding value. If these monies were given to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, the Department of Livestock and all other small authorities like NDMA and all other Government institutions that deal with the issue of livestock can be well planned to be able to come up with strategies and ways to mitigate drought, I think this will have helped our communities. Instead of us thinking about this Kshs2 billion which was only given once to this institution, it is high time we thought of creating a Ministry to deal with the issue of climate change because it is becoming a serious element to the livelihood of our people. The issues of pasture management, water and educating our people on climate patterns are things that we need to factor in the Budget. We need a budget to look into the issues of climate change and how people can be able to harvest grass at a time when it rains. Like now, it has rained for three weeks and maybe in another two months, we shall still experience the same. But if people are given skills on how to harvest hay and water, this will go a long way in helping the pastoralist communities. Another thing that needs to be done on the implementation of this Act is to give them a budget. The Kshs2 billion is still small compared to the situation we have in the country on climate change and many counties not receiving rainfall. So, we need to top up their budget. We also need to bring together Government agencies that we give budgets. All of them are looking into a smaller component of food. We need to bring all of them together. For example, within the Ministry of Agriculture we have the Meteorological Department that looks at the weather. We need to empower them to have equipment that can easily detect the weather patterns. We also need to look into research institutions like the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) which is nowadays called Kenya Agricultural & Livestock 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."
}