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{
    "id": 948638,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/948638/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 220,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Khaniri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 171,
        "legal_name": "George Munyasa Khaniri",
        "slug": "george-khaniri"
    },
    "content": "Committee. I also want to declare that I represent tea farmers. We grow tea in Vihiga and we have a tea factory known as the Mudete Tea Factory. Let me start by thanking my colleague, the Senator for Kericho County, Sen. Cheruiyot, for coming up with the idea of forming an ad hoc Committee of the Senate to look into issues that affect tea farmers in this country. I want to thank the membership of that Committee for their dedication. They managed to visit about seven counties to meet the farmers and all the stakeholders in the tea sector. Therefore, I want to assure the House that the report that the ad hoc Committee came up with is comprehensive and all- inclusive and we included views from all the concerned stakeholders. Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, this Report was signed in July; this is October, three months down the road. It is long overdue. This Report should have been passed a few months ago. We should have made sure that it is not just passed but also implemented. This is because what is contained in this Report is what will salvage tea farmers in this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for those of us who grew up in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, it was an era where tea farming was beneficial to the farmer. My own father was a tea farmer. I still hold on to that farm even though there is not much that I get from it, but just for memory’s sake. I do that for my father. However, there is nothing really. In fact, we put in money but do not get anything out of it. However, I grew up in an era when tea farming was beneficial to the farmer. Indeed as Sen. Kibiru has said, farming is supposed to be beneficial. It is supposed to be a kind of business enterprise that benefits the farmer. Therefore, it is absolutely important that the recommendations in this Report are implemented so that the tea farmer can reap the benefits of the hard work that they put into their farms. When we were having our sessions, a few factors came up that need to be looked at in order for the tea farmer to benefit from his venture. The first and foremost is the issue of value addition. We may talk here year-in, year-out but as long as we still export our tea in the raw form that we do, the tea farmer will not benefit from the hard work that they put in. It is high time the Government looked into the issue of value addition so that we do not export our tea raw because other countries use it to blend their poor-quality tea. I agree with Sen. Wetangula that Kenyan tea is the best in the world because you cannot compare it to that of Sri Lanka. All the lepton green teas that we drink out there are all blended by Kenyan tea. Therefore, value addition should be considered so that we export fully processed products in order to save the farmer."
}