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{
    "id": 784159,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/784159/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 353,
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    "content": "in the Bible, when our first parents sinned, the only thing that God would give them as an alternative is to till their land, be productive and sweat in order to produce for their survival. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the culture of food production gets me to that second level. The culture of food production has shifted heavily. We have gone in for certain types of food but at the end of the day, they have given us a lot of problems and difficulties in our health profiles. What do I mean by this? Indeed, you heard from Sen. (Dr.) Ali from Wajir County, whom I had the occasion to teach medicine, he was absolutely right. Some of the preservatives that are being used to keep “our food in storage” are the ones causing mischief in terms of the cancer incidences which are on the rise. Today, every county without any exception is coping with the scourge of cancer which has mushroomed suddenly. The time we were doing medicine in the 1960s, one of the biggest problems in our hospitals was Kwashiorkor – lack of a balanced diet. As we grew up, and as we grappled with this problem, we were able to manage Kwashiorkor by a balanced diet. We advised our populations and our communities about Kwashiorkor and how to prevent that contamination of a balanced diet. Today, our communities and populations have no variety of choices; they would take anything that comes in their way because of the scarcity of food. There are areas which have plenty of food while there are others with scarce food. The method of movement from food plenty to food scarce areas again is in jeopardy. I would have liked to see in this Bill how we are going to, first of all, utilize the internal resource to move food from one level to another. What I have seen is an adhoc reaction; almost a knee-jerk reaction to a national disaster. I have seen the Red Cross at the forefront while the rest of the people have been bystanders, because they are not participants when this kind of national disaster strikes. Water is essential for life; not only for human beings, but also our plants and animals. We now have floods terrorizing our existence in this country, yet all that water is going to waste. Sometime this week – I think the day before yesterday – I read that River Sabaki had broken its banks and had completely destroyed the crops of those who were trying to plant for this season. We are, therefore, facing another famine in as far as that region is concerned. Where did that water come from? It came from Athi River, Ngong Hills and these other places because we have not gotten into the culture of water preservation. I remember when I was working in Wajir - and Sen. (Eng.) Mahamud will agree with me – I would travel from Wajir Township to Giriftu, Buna or to the border of Wajir with Ethiopia, Gurao. The distance from Gurao to Buna is only 40 kilometres, but when it rained, it took us 12 hours to move from Gurao to Buna. When we tried to move from Buna to Wajir town – and in between there is Giriftu town – we found the whole place flooded. There were landmines thus we had to stop and, by an act of God, we stopped short of being ambushed by the then Shiftas. A lot of water goes to waste at this time when we have plenty of rain. The water table of Wajir is very shallow. We have not gone to a level where we conserve every drop of water, like the Israelis do. I say this because I have visited their homes. 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."
}