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"content": "In this Bill, one of the things that we must put in black and white is water storage and preservation so that it forms part and parcel of our food security network. We cannot scratch on the surface and say that we have a Bill which cannot take into account how we are going to harvest rain water during the season of plenty, like what we have right now. I dare say that it starts with us, as Senators. Have we showed an example of water conservation in our own individual homesteads, or are we coming here to debate and then, at the end of it, say that we want the Government to do a, b, c and d? When I talk about government, I am referring to both the National and county governments, which should preserve water. If we stop the flow of River Nile today, Egypt will be at war with every riparian state around the River Nile. It is no wonder that they have now placed hydrologists in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation in these riparian states and they are doing so because of water. Their sustainable lifestyle and the developments in the new settlements depend on the River Nile. Israel has only one river, River Jordan, and they have exploited it fully for food productivity; it is no wonder that they are able to export even fruits. There was a time when we only wanted to eat fruits from Israel, although we are now eating fruits from South Africa. It is a tragedy, yet this country is so much endowed with land resource, which is finite if we do not take care of it. The mischief that we are now seeing is that there is a rise in the death rate as a result of malnutrition and poverty. There is also a rise in poor performance in our schools because children are not fed properly. I was happy to see the Chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries admit that the Nyayo Milk Programme was an important programme for this nation. I had expected that we would have adopted this programme throughout our generations. However, because of our poor politics, we threw it away for being a product of the Nyayo philosophy. This is despite the fact that children, who are products of that programme, are the professors, principals, chief clerks, Senators, Members of Parliament and brilliant minds of this society today. I am saying this because I am also a Member of the Committee on Education. Unless we nurture our Early Childhood Development (ECD) population properly, we are going to land into problems. You will notice that I have brought in the philosophy of food. The underlying factor of this philosophy must be that; let us not do something which is ad hoc; let us not operate at the kneejerk reaction level. We should instead consolidate all the relevant food agencies and bring them in tandem with this Bill. This is because you can create a mushroom of entities, each handling its small things. For example, we now have the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), the Food Production Authority and the Special Programmes in the Office of the President, among many others. We, therefore, want to harmonise all these pieces of legislation into one. I believe that agriculture, being a fully devolved county function, counties need to have a bigger say in the productivity that will ensue. When that is done, the benefits will accrue directly to the people who are affected from place to place. I support this Bill, although there are a few things that we will sit down and wind through so as to see how we can innovate this Bill for it to serve Kenyans. At the end of it all, it should be seen as a master Act of this Senate and Parliament. It should be seen that, 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."
}