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{
    "id": 816740,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/816740/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kilifi North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Owen Baya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13373,
        "legal_name": "Owen Yaa Baya",
        "slug": "owen-yaa-baya"
    },
    "content": "take their kids to school without asking for bursary or anything. They could afford services without asking anybody for a cent. They built very many secondary and primary schools because cashew nuts earned them money and this led to the development of the region. Today, the people of Kilifi have been made to beg for everything. For someone to take his children to school in that county, he must be given a bursary or something. This is the case and yet he has a 12-acre farm that can support him if he grew cashew nuts. Today, a person in Kilifi cannot build a decent home or house because he has 12 acres which cannot help him because the factory and the whole industry collapsed. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the revival of the cashew nuts sub-sector in coast region will revive its economy which has taken a thorough beating because we lost the industry. This is because the cashew nuts sub-sector employed over 10,000 people directly and over 30,000 people indirectly. Today, we have the potential to double the number of people who can be directly employed if we revive this sub-sector. We also have the potential to double the number of people who can be employed indirectly in this sub-sector which for many years, because of lack of legislation and proper policy, has collapsed. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, middlemen were allowed to run amok in this sub- sector, such that a farmer never got value for his produce. One imperative, value addition, was not taken as important. The only thing that was done was that we processed raw nuts and exported. Worse, cartels were allowed to even export raw nuts directly to firms abroad. They left out the most important part of value addition. Therefore, people were left with nothing when the sub-sector collapsed. The people of Kilifi continue to demand that this factory which was sold for a song must be revived and given back to the people of Kilifi who owned shares through cooperatives and whose farmers depended solely on this factory. I want you to take cognisance of crops which were given prominence and proper legislation and policy and, therefore, they thrived. Coffee thrived because it had several Acts. The tea industry thrived in this country because there was proper legislation and policy to protect the industry. Pyrethrum and other crops in this country prospered because there was proper legislation. Today, the cashew nut sub-sector suffers because the Government never moved to protect it. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for us to revive the cashew nut sub-sector, I urge the Government, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Departmental Committee on Agriculture to, one, look at the possibility of setting up a cashew nut development authority. This will specifically drive the cashew nut agenda. It will also set up a cashew nut development fund so that we can fund the revival of the sub-sector. This way, we will rescue this crop which has the potential of increasing the GDP of this country. Today, this crop has been lumped among many other crops in the Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Authority (AFFA) Act, but the Act does not take cognisance of how special this crop is to a whole region. Therefore, we are likely to see this sub-sector collapse completely. So, I urge and request that this House resolves that cashew nut be moved out of the AFFA Act and a special Act and policy be developed for this crop. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there are certain things which we must avoid as we revive this sub-sector which I hope the Ministry of Agriculture will take into account in developing a new policy to spur the growth and development of the cashew nut sub-sector. Middlemen continue to exploit farmers. We would like to have a policy that protects a farmer from exploitation by middlemen. The production of this crop is diminishing. Why? It is because farmers are cutting down trees today because they do not have a ready market devoid of The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}