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{
    "id": 877930,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/877930/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 371,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I totally agree with you and I will take as little time as possible. First of all, I want to support this great Report that captures the aspirations, dreams and concerns of the people of this country who are maize farmers. When we were in Eldoret, like the Senate Minority Leader said, you saw the passion of most of the maize farmers who were looking for action. I must say that the problem - like the former Senate Minority Leader always liked quoting the trouble with Nigeria - with maize is not just a problem of people stealing or delivering wrong maize to the NCPB. It is a strategic problem as a country, a policy problem. It is a problem of assuming that we can reap where we did not sow. For a long time, agriculture was a strategic sector earning us a lot of foreign exchange. That was taken for granted. That is why we have problems in the tea sector and coffee sector. All these problems that we are facing in the agriculture sector are the assumption we have as country. Some of us who come from North Rift face the same problem when it comes to sports. This nation prides itself to be great sports nation. A country that has great sportsmen, but we do not have any investment of the State or even a proper investment of the private sector for sports. So what happens? We assume that all the time we would be winning world medals and having good athletes. If you go to Iten in my county where you have these athletes, you will notice that the training facilities and environment is not very conducive, but they earn the glory to this nation. They advertise this nation. The same applies to agriculture. Maize farmers, for many years, we assumed that they are just maize farmers; they will plant, harvest, feed the nation and we like discussing in public and we say the bread basket of this Republic is in the North Rift, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu, parts of Bungoma and parts of the former Western Province. We have not sat down as a nation and put long-term policy positions, first about agricultural research. If you go to what is called Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) now, we have amalgamated various parastatals in the past that were doing research; the ones that were dealing with different crops like tea, maize, coffee and pyrethrum. All of them were brought together in one body with one Director-General who I think even at the moment is not in office. I think he is in acting capacity. Then we created a Directorate to take care of food. That is where you find maize at the corner there being called food department. I think that was abolished. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we, as a nation, now wake up every year and ask ourselves why our farmers are complaining. Why are we not getting enough food? Why The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}