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{
    "id": 777101,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/777101/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 62,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "for example, let us look at agriculture, which is 100 per cent devolved. The Budget Policy Statement allocates a staggering Kshs39 billion to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries at the headquarters. Assuming that the counties will adhere to the Maputo Protocol and allocate 10 per cent of the allocations to agriculture, this brings to it only Kshs37 million per county. In fact, most counties allocate less than 5 per cent, with some allocating as little as 3 per cent of their revenues to agriculture. Mr. Speaker, Sir, agriculture employs 75 per cent of the workforce in this country, which produces food to feed the 45 million Kenyans. However, if you look at what is being put in agriculture, it makes a whole nonsense of the so called ‘Big Four’. You are talking of value addition, but where is the money to engineer value addition? You are talking of post-harvest management of products, but where is the money to manage this post-harvest management? You are talking of exports, but where is the money to engineer these exports? Mr. Speaker, Sir, I represent a county of farmers; so are counties like Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Nandi, Nakuru and many others. There is hype about free, subsidisedor cheap fertilizer. The meteorologists are already saying that the rains are starting next week. But we will wait until the rains are over and then, in a purely populist caricature, you will then see leaders running to farmers with fertilizer when the planting and weeding seasons are gone and the farmers do not need that fertilizer. The most abused people in this country are the farmers and, yet, because of their resilience, some even sell part of their land to produce food for Kenyans. Why are we not giving enough money to agriculture? The distinguished Chairperson of my Committee made no mention whatsoever, about the strangulation and starving of the agricultural sector that is so critical to the economy of this country. He is being ably aided and abated by his Vice Chairperson, who engages in a rigmarole of all manner of things that do not add up to anything economics or financial."
}