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{
    "id": 963414,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/963414/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 41,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "This is not the only sector in which these kinds of warped economics are at play. We have seen this in every sector in this country and we wonder why Kenyan farmers and consumers continue to be punished even when other fundamentals of economics are meant to favour them. This is a very important sub-sector in the agricultural sector. I am told it contributes to almost 40,000 jobs and 4.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Progress (GDP). However, even with all these important contributions, we find ourselves in a food crisis. I know in the next cycle of drought, we will not have milk or it will be expensive. At the same time, milk will not change in terms of prices. We are told the inflows are from neighbouring countries yet our country is the one that produces the most milk in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if we are serious about the Big Four Agenda, food security and job creation, it is high time the fundamentals of economics start being what guides our economy. Our economy seems to be guided by something other than the fundamentals of economics. Sometimes farmers in parts of Nyandarua County and the Rift Valley pour all their milk when perhaps in northern Kenya, especially in areas that do not have good milk supply, find ourselves facing a food crisis. This is something that the Chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries should commit to doing immediately. This is because when this is done much later when the glut is already gone, then the farmer will have lost already, will be impoverished and not rewarded for the hard work of producing good quality milk. People are now shunning farming and we wonder why the youth are not farming. If farming does not pay, be it livestock or dairy, then why should anybody go into farming? We should take this very seriously. It is about time that we started supporting agriculture especially the dairy farming sub-sector."
}