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{
    "id": 831144,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/831144/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 241,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Turbo, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Janet Sitienei",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13497,
        "legal_name": "Janet Jepkemboi Sitienei",
        "slug": "janet-jepkemboi-sitienei-2"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to add to the voice of my other colleagues. I stand here to support this Bill on warehouse receipt system. It is estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that a third of food produced for consumption is lost along the food value chain. That is through the pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest loses. Therefore, it directly impacts negatively on food and nutrition, security and livelihoods of our people. I come from Uasin Gishu County that is referred to as a food basket alongside Trans Nzoia County. Most of our small-scale farmers incur a lot of losses through post-harvest. This Bill will go a long way in assisting the small-scale farmers. FAO also estimates that 1.3 billion metric tonnes of food produced is lost globally. Proportionately, we lose about US$1 trillion. This Bill is going to ensure that small-scale farmers are safeguarded from post-harvest losses. Therefore, they will increase the prices of the products through increase in the quantities they hold at the warehouse. It will also ensure quality of the grain because they will go through training before they deposit their produce or commodities into their warehouse. The warehouse will ensure that there is quality and that measuring the commodity is done and safeguarded for speculation of better prices for our small-scale farmers who form the majority of farmers in this nation. I also support the Bill. It will help our farmers to use the receipts provided by the warehouse operators as collateral in banks and request for funds for fees or whatever other activities they want to undertake as part of their livelihoods. This is a very good Bill that will go a long way in supporting our farmers. Our farmers will also be able to transfer the receipts to another person and use them to collect funds to do whatever they want to do as they wait for prices to improve. This will enable them to access better prices for their produce. The Bill is really going to assist our farmers. The quality of produce from our farmers is also going to improve. Improved market prices will improve the livelihoods of our farmers. It will enable them to even request organisations like FAO to purchase their commodities, cereals or grains from the warehouses. Therefore, farmers will get better returns from it. I support the Bill knowing that it will go a long way in safeguarding our farmers and ensuring that there is value for their produce. As I speak, our farmers are selling their maize at around Kshs800 for a 90-kilogramme bag because the biggest challenge that they have is lack of storage facilities. I want to speak to my colleague who said that this is going to benefit only the large-scale farmers. That is not true. The people with the biggest challenge are the small-scale farmers. Their challenge is lack of storage facilities. They harvest, but they have nowhere to store their produce. Therefore, they incur a lot of post-harvest losses through handling of the produce in the value chain up to the NCPB. Even in terms of quality and quantity, they incur a lot of losses through change of the moisture content and handling of the produce. Since the Bill provides for the 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."
}