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{
    "id": 90844,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/90844/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 137,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you look at the amount of money given to the Ministry of Agriculture, it is obviously inadequate. The principal envelope maybe small, but I think the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance could have done better. I say so, because there is a lot that the Ministry of Agriculture can do and must do in this country. Up until the early 1990s when the Ministry of Agriculture became a casualty after Kenya fell into the trap of the World Bank engineered reforms called Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), agriculture used to do very well. We had Field Extension Officers that we still need in almost every corner of this country. We had extension officers for coffee, livestock and even for poultry and all other crops. The ordinary farmer who did not have the know-how in many ways was constantly assisted. The Government was running cattle dips although that is in Ministry of Livestock, but it was part of the Ministry of Agriculture. The Government was running Artificial Insemination (AI) services. It was also running bull camps. The Government was the forerunner and undertaker of marketing. The cereals board was vibrant. A farmer knew where to get credit for inputs from Kenya Farmers Associations (KFA) and knew where to deliver the crop after harvest. All these have gone down the drain. The Kenyan farmer is now left at the mercy of shylocks in the middle who, when you have a bumper harvest, they pick your crop for a song and when there is no food, they sell you at rooftop prices. The ordinary Kenyan suffers greatly. I listened to the Minister as I was driving here and I was impressed that she has very good ideas on what to do with this Ministry. I hope and believe that this House, with the new strategy on budgeting and the new dispensation coming into the country, will empower this Ministry to take agriculture back to where it belongs and make the Kenyan farmer a proud person who will enjoy the proceeds of his or her labour. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I come from a constituency where we grow cane. I urge the Minister to help the cane industry against poachers. A factory like Nzoia, where the Government has overwhelming stakes, gives money to farmers for fertilizers. It also prepares their land; gives them topdressing fertilizer and provides transport for the cane. However, when the cane is mature, poachers come and buy it from the farmer. They then deprive the company that is owned by the Government its right to harvest the cane and recover the inputs. I urge the Minister to liaise with the Minister of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security to protect these factories against the cane poachers who run jaggeries and small sugar factories and look for cane without doing anything about its development. Equally, I am aware of similar activities creeping into the tea industry. There is a Bill pending before this House and I urge the Minister to liaise with the hon. Member who brought it as a Private Bill so that she takes it over and enriches it so that it can cover not only poaching in the tea industry, but poaching of crops in all the other sub-sectors of the industry. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a lot of talk about Kenyan wheat. Kenya is unlikely to win the war against our East African partners. What we must do and should do as Parliament is to subsidize the farmer. This is done everywhere. European farmers are heavily subsidized while French Governments have failed when they failed to subsidize farmers. The Minister should bring to this House a request so that we allocate her money to subsidize the farmers so that they can get the proceeds of their sweat. I support this Motion."
}