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{
    "id": 884031,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/884031/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 325,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": "food security and the ability for us to export and become the best country in terms of exports. We must also, as a nation, identify our areas of comparative advantage. Tea still remains one of our areas of great comparative advantage. We now need to ask ourselves whether we are diversifying, even inside the tea sector. Are we introducing different varieties of tea? Are we discussing which varieties can go to Somalia? How do we target the Arab world? How can we target the European, Chinese and the American market? Do we have various actors who are committed to having sectoral focus that will make sure that the market is guaranteed? Madam Temporary Speaker, during the Devolution Conference, I was very happy with Kirinyaga County. These are the simple ideas that we are talking about. They have found a market for their coffee in New York. It is a simple idea; they have connected a farmer to their market and then they have introduced value addition. In between it, you create jobs and manufacturing. Once you add this value, you now have a place you are exporting it to. I have insisted on this issue, and I have said it for my county; sometimes it does not mean that all solutions to the problems that we have in the country must have an allocation of money from the national Government. When I went to Kirinyaga and saw what they were doing, it was clear in my mind that it was not about the money that we allocated to Kirinyaga County, but about wisdom and the ability for one to create ideas that are able to earn a living for our people and counties. Look, in that coffee sector, there is no money being expended by the Kirinyaga County Government. I believe that if Elgeyo Marakwet County, for example, would continue encouraging coffee farmers, because we have space for coffee farming; we have a bit of tea in a place called Kapcherop, which is a high-altitude area, where there is potential for us to have as much tea as possible from one end of the county called Metkei to the other end of the county in Kapcherop. Madam Temporary Speaker, some of those ideas are just to encourage farmers; showing them what to do, giving them education and showing them where to buy the seeds. This is because we also do not want to create a mentality of dependency by citizens on social support by Government. We must also help them to create wealth. I believe that this Bill is well intended towards that direction. I support the idea of having a Tea Regulatory Authority of this country. I support the objective of this tea authority, which includes promotion of the tea industry, regulating, developing, and coordinating the activities of individuals and organizations within the tea industry. It also includes facilitating equitable access to the benefits and resources of the tea industry by the interested parties so that we have an entity that you can go to. If the whole world wants to look for the best advice, we must have it here. I suggest that other than the regulation of tea, we must remove tea research from being a component of the Agriculture Food Authority (AFA). I hope Sen. Cheruiyot is listening to me. If we communicate here just about regulation, we must also have a place where it can contribute to new market products for the citizens."
}