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{
    "id": 784108,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/784108/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 302,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "extremely not acceptable. Therefore, it means that we are not putting our money where our mouth is. We keep telling the whole world that we are an agricultural country and that this is what we are doing and so on, and yet ten million people in this country are food insecure. Therefore, I would want to urge even the national Government to also look at the Maputo Declaration so that we put our money and the resources, where our mouth is. Agriculture needs to be properly funded. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, currently it is raining, but there are many parts of this country where subsidised fertilizer has not reached the people. In the places it has reached, the same subsidised fertilizer is not getting to the common people; it is being hawked by tenderpreneurs all over the country. That is why it is necessary to have a centralised authority to monitor food distribution. In the past, we had a given Ministry being responsible for food distribution; where the provincial administration and the chiefs were in charge. We had cases where food was taken to a county, let us say today, then tomorrow, you would find the same food in the market in that particular place. The people were food insecure and starving because they had not gotten the food. Food insecurity is in very many places and not just in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL). The Senate Majority Leader thinks that it is the ASAL areas that we need to look at specifically, whereas, it is virtually the entire country. We need to have school feeding programmes for the entire country because children who are hungry cannot learn. I have observed situations where children leave school to go and look for food. Children will leave the house in the morning knowing that there will be no food when they return home. We should have a situation where all primary schools have feeding programmes. This is a challenge for the county governments. Although Education is devolved, it is actually under the national Government since the Early Childhood Development (ECD) is the only part which is devolved. So, we need to take some of these things a bit seriously as we discuss the budgets of the counties. If we are serious about food security, it must start with children. Article 53(1)(c) of the Constitution provides that: “Every child has the right to basic nutrition, shelter and health care.” So, if we are not going in that direction of starting with the children, I do not know how we will address the issue of food insecurity. That is where we should start by introducing school feeding programmes which used to be there. At one time we used to laugh at the Nyayo milk programme. If we want to encourage production even of our dairy farmers, then we should introduce these things. This is where a country needs to spend its money. We must spend our money on our children. Any farmer knows that if you want to have a good harvest, you must start with the seedlings. I urge that all of us start with our seedlings which are our children. Let us feed our children from nursery schools to primary schools. Giving them free education is one thing. When you only give them free education, they will not learn because they are hungry. Let us introduce serious school feeding programmes for our children so that we can have a generation that we deserve as a country. 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."
}