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"id": 942343,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/942343/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tigania West, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Mutunga",
"speaker": {
"id": 13495,
"legal_name": "John Kanyuithia Mutunga",
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"content": "framework 10 years later in Malabo as the Malabo Framework for Action. For your information, Kenya is a signatory to that too. Kenya is, therefore, yet to meet its obligations. It always excuses herself in the casting and interpretations. What I mean by this is that, the agricultural sector is lumped up with the other sectors in rural development. Infrastructural development is sometimes linked up with agriculture as part of the contribution. So, if the farmers were registered, organised and signed up, the pact would have been implemented. They would have lobbied and pushed for it. If, indeed, we had registered farmer’s organisation, it is not only the Government that would be in high alert, but ourselves too in terms of listening to farmers’ issues as it were. So, for agriculture to work in Kenya, we need an agrarian reform and not an agrarian revolution. Many efforts have been put in place and tried out in this country, but the options have not yielded the relevant results. We have initiatives like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) which is trying to do something about the agrarian reform. However, it is lacking in terms of approach. It sounds like it is bent to deliver Pan African agricultural reform. It has fallen short of a few issues that I would wish to mention. A revolution is an all-resources, all-efforts and all-possibilities resolved. We need a revolution in the agricultural sector for us to cause the needed domains to change for the better. We need to change our farming systems, our approach to agriculture and the size of our lands. A revolution is, therefore, thorough, systematic, consultative and highly result-oriented. Looking at AGRA as an initiative to cause agrarian reform, it makes us worry because very little, if anything, goes to the direction of registration, aggregation or organisation of farmers. None of our counties has so far considerably prioritised agriculture in order to develop. While we know that the greater majority of the counties will depend on agriculture to grow, very few of them have prioritised agriculture. Apart from Mombasa and Nairobi counties which can get their income from other sources, all the other counties will need to improve their agriculture for them to grow. So, registration of farmers is the first step in realising green revolution in Kenya as it is in realising green revolution anywhere else in the world. Farmers are the soldiers in this particular war. Borrowing from the developed world, most countries grow from agriculture where farmers are registered, organised and tasked to grow and produce raw materials for their industries. Countries grew in terms of what was good for them. Organised production systems, also called v-zoning of the Arab world, determined the production zones based on their ability to produce. Industries are linked with the production systems so that they may be supplied with raw materials. If we have to realise the Big Four Agenda, we must be able to organise our raw materials and link them to these industries. Farmers in this country have lost confidence in government-driven formations. I want to cite the case of cooperatives. The cooperative movement collapsed because a cooperative officer could change the decision of a cooperative board or committee. That is the reason most farmers do not have confidence in the cooperative movement. Whether mature or otherwise, prepared or not, soon and very soon, Kenyan farmers will be on their own. They will be on their own because when you look at what is happening in the agricultural sector, most of the technocrats are retiring and the Government is not replacing them. Before we find farmers purely on their own, we need to have them organised so that they may be able to receive extension or consultancy services through organised systems. Unless we have small-holder farmers organised, they may not be able to buy extension services as much as they may also not be able to buy inputs. What they need is a supportive policy framework that will state the investment, which must be free of influence. This process must be farmer-owned, farmer-driven, farmer-managed The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}