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{
    "id": 821278,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/821278/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 172,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": ". The new crop of maize will be ready for harvest in the next two months. The farmers will now have to empty their stores again in order to put in the new maize. To empty these stores, they will either throw away the maize or deliver it to the middlemen – whom Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. has been talking about – at a throwaway price. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I was talking to Sen. (Prof.) Kamar and I asked her where we went wrong. This is because we had public institutions in this country that protected and helped the farmer, from the beginning to the end of the chain. We had the Kenya Farmers Association (KFA), which was later turned into something called the Kenya Grain Growers Cooperation Union (KGGCU), which was then killed because some people wanted to take over its properties. We had the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC), which nobody hears about anymore; and we have the NCPB, which is completely mismanaged today. We also had the Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC), which supplied farmers with hardware implements. The farmer went through these institutions to get credit for input, ploughing and everything and eventually have his money paid by the NCPB around the chain and the balance given to him to go home. Mr. Speaker, Sir, today, the farmer lives in a nightmare situation. When you have a bumper harvest, you have nowhere to sell the crop. This country is a signatory to the Maputo Protocol that requires every African country to put 10 per cent of its budget as the bare minimum in agriculture for food security. My enquiry tells me that this year, the budget component for agriculture is 2.9 per cent. This is a violation of a protocol that we have signed, when our own Constitution says that every international instrument and treaty that we sign becomes part of our domestic law. So, we are obligated to honour it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) that extends credit to farmers. Farmers are being auctioned with their produce stuck in their granaries because they cannot sell it anywhere. All this has brought untold harm to farmers. I tabled here a report from the Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Hon. Mwangi Kiunjuri, where he was talking of farmers in Bungoma County – where you and I come from – growing maize on 800 acres of land. You and I, know that in Bungoma County, the largest land holding that you can get to grow maize cannot be 100 acres. In fact, anybody with 100 acres of maize farm in Bungoma County is celebrated. 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."
}