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{
    "id": 8415,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/8415/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 532,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Nonetheless, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, let me start off by reminding this House and the country the obvious that the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) is really the key Government agency that provides agricultural credit to the entire agricultural value chain in this country. This includes the primary producers. We are talking about maize, wheat, and legume farmers. We are also talking about livestock farmers across the length and breadth of the country. AFC also provides credit to investors in this country who participatory engage in value addition. So, you are talking about players within the agri-industry sector. We are talking about horticulture, fishing industry and a whole range of other players in what you may want to call the agri- business sector. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it also needs to be appreciated that this urgency being the key provider of the fuel that powers the agricultural sector in this country requires sufficient funds to enable it play this critical role. It has already been determined as far back as 2008 when the AFC together with the Ministry of Agriculture conducted a base land survey just to determine the financing requirements of this country if we are to make Kenya food secure. That base land survey found that this country requires a minimum of Kshs115 billion in terms of financing threshold to enable the agricultural sector to be sufficiently financed to make this country food secure. Another important matter to note is that AFC today has a capacity to provide credit in the region of Kshs15 billion to the agricultural sector. However, because of limited resources, the AFC today has an operating threshold of only Kshs4.5 billion. This means that this important State agency that is critical to our agricultural sector is undercapitalized by up to Kshs10.5 billion. In basic statistics, this means that AFC is operating at less than one-third of its capacity to provide credit to the agricultural sector. This undercapitalization has made it impossible or rather difficult for the AFC to spread its wings and provide its critical services across the country such that to date, the AFC is not able to effectively service a number of counties including Garissa, Isiolo, Mandera, Marsabit, Samburu, Tharaka Nithi, Turkana, Wajir and several other counties which would otherwise be fully supported by AFC if it had sufficient resources. With that background, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, one can, therefore, appreciate the huge challenge when this institution is unable to recover an amount of Kshs2 billion from farmers and other players in the agricultural sector who owe AFC money. Let it be appreciated and emphasized that the farmers in this country; be they crop farmers or livestock farmers or investors in the agri-industry, are unable to service"
}