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{
    "id": 977136,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/977136/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 264,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kigumo, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Wangari Mwaniki",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13369,
        "legal_name": "Ruth W Mwaniki",
        "slug": "ruth-w-mwaniki"
    },
    "content": "We know the important role agriculture plays in the economic development of our country. In the past, there was a lot of emphasis on the key enablers like roads, energy and ICT development. A lot of money has been appropriated by the National Assembly to take care of those sectors, but we keep on crying that ground mambo ni different, pesa haifiki mashinani. We know that people in rural areas are reliant on agriculture, mainly tea, coffee and livestock, but a lot of resources do not go into those very areas where we know our people are. The Annual World Bank Report, and such reports have been coming out every year, and have continuously stated that we will never realise a double digit growth in our economic development until we focus on agriculture. I do not know how much more we need to be told this, so that we can focus and place the right resources where they should belong. If we want to turn agriculture around and touch the lives of people in villages, then we must agree to put resources to those places. I am very happy that in this Report the Committee has unearthed the problems most of our institutions undergo. The mzungu said that before you remove a fence, always ask why they put it there in the first place. The Coffee Research Institute was an institution we could all take pride in. Indeed, the potential growth of coffee in Vietnam and other countries including Burundi and Rwanda got studies and seedlings from our Coffee Research Institute. They used scientists from the CRI to grow their coffee. The Union of Coffee Growers in Rwanda is now a very strong body while Kenya Planters Cooperative Union (KPCU) has gone down. While I hated the KPCU, the Union of Coffee Growers in Rwanda came to benchmark in Kenya. One of the institutions they visited then was the Coffee Research Institute and it had very well paid scientists who researched on coffee matters focusing on a crop that was the financial backbone of very many people not just in Central Kenya, but also Western Kenya. For your information, Western Kenya has the potential to grow double the amount of coffee that Central used to grow. Central Kenya is no longer growing coffee. There are no areas for expansion because most of our coffee farms have been turned into residential estates. We need to expand to other areas of potential like Fort Ternan, Western Kenya, Muhoroni in Nyanza and Kisii. How do we expand if we do not have the right seedlings? The only institute that was giving us the Ruiru 11, the Batian and other varieties of coffee bushes that would assist farmers in reducing the cost of production, because they were resistant to diseases, was the CRI. Farmers have now been left on their own. They do not know where to get seedlings from. How then will we grow coffee? How do we expand the coffee sector? How do we help the farmers if we do not focus on the CRI?"
}