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{
    "id": 90855,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/90855/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 148,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kamama",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 165,
        "legal_name": "Asman Abongutum Kamama",
        "slug": "asman-kamama"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to support the Vote of this Ministry and wish to thank the Minister for eloquently moving the Motion. I sat for almost three hours, but I will highlight three things. Agriculture is the backbone of this country. If we fix agriculture, we will have done a lot of justice to the people of Kenya. As you know, 80 per cent of Kenyans are employed by this sector and 20 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from agriculture. So, we need to fix it, so that we can move forward. With regard to the issue of extension services, we need to fund our extension workers. There is no way our farmers will get to know the findings from our research stations, if they are not given sufficient information by the extension workers. With regard to the issue of research, we are happy that the Ministry has come up with about 14 varieties of crops through research. This is being prolific and we need to support our officers for doing a good job. On the issue of irrigation, 78 per cent of Kenya is ASAL. We need to give a lot of funds to the irrigation sector, so that many of our people in ASAL areas can benefit. Lastly, I want to advise the Minister to borrow a lot from the policy of the current President of Malawi, President Mutharika, on how he has transformed that country by using subsidies in the agricultural sector to catapult the GDP growth to almost 7 per cent. We need our officers to go to Malawi and get a lot of information, so that in the next three years, we can use the information. If we want to achieve Vision 2030, we need to borrow a lot from Malawi, which is relatively a very poor country. With those remarks, I support the Motion in full force."
}