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{
    "id": 979974,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/979974/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 220,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tinderet, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Julius Melly",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12849,
        "legal_name": "Julius Kipbiwot Melly",
        "slug": "julius-kipbiwot-melly"
    },
    "content": "Nandi, Limuru and Central Kenya. There were days when the foreign exchange relied very heavily on tea. We need this Act because without it, the whole sector is being controlled by cartels who are now not taking quality into consideration. Cartels sell the tea and yet, they are not the growers. They even do not mind earning three times from the sale while the farmers earn paltry amounts and remain slaves. The farmer remains with nothing. He cannot even buy food or pay school fees. The farmer is supposed to only give labour with nothing to receive in return. So, when I look at this particular Bill, especially the establishment of the board… Let us look at AFA. AFA came as a result of an organisational problem which the Ministry of Agriculture wanted to solve. It was on how to manage so many bodies and parastatals within the agricultural sector. However, in trying to solve that by bringing pyrethrum, tea, sugar, cotton and all the others under one body of AFA, they forgot to give the synergy and attention to the respective crops. As we speak today, coffee, tea, cotton and all the others are actually on their death-bed and we are talking about lack of employment in this country. We are talking of the economy not doing well. We are talking of trying to spur up growth and then we are not getting the right thing. When you look at the tea sub-sector, KTDA grew from an Authority which was actually a government parastatal. It was taken over by farmers and lately, it has been taken over by cartels who will decide the prices of tea at their whims. Tea tasting is never scientific. It is just done by one officer or individual who is just told this tea tastes better and the other one does not taste good. This particular Act tries to make sure that the Kenya Tea Research Foundation is actually entrenched and actually made to work well so that the sector will now allow all the factories and farmers to play a role in marketing, arriving at the prices and even in the auctions. Today, we have tea farms in Nandi, Limuru and other parts of the country, but we do the auction in Mombasa. The farmer does not know the process. The farmer is not even aware how you arrived at that particular price. If we are going to bring back the Tea Board of Kenya, first of all, it is going to regulate the many dependants on the route between the farm and the market. Secondly, it will also ensure that every factory that is within a growing zone is responsible for its sales. As we speak now, we have the East African auction in Mombasa where even our tea is blended with other foreign tea. When you do so, you even lose the quality because the cartel or the businessman does not care much about what the farmer will get. They care about themselves. In the 70s and 80s, the founding fathers of the nation really had a foresight. I think we are to blame as leaders and even as the succeeding governments because they deliberately oversaw agriculture going down. I can cite a number of examples. Apart from that, AFA has a sugar directorate which removed sugar levy. It has a directorate which is supposed to oversee the importation of sugar by several sugar mills. They have flooded the market. I come from a sugar growing zone. I have seen very rich farmers and able individuals rendered very poor. It is as a result of the Ministry of Agriculture and the various government agencies failing to take up their role and to ensure that the farmer is protected. This Bill needs to be enhanced. It needs to be enhanced in such a way that when you read it together with the Crops Act, you will realise that each crop is given the necessary attention by the agency or board that oversees it. The various boards that oversee tea and even coffee, maize, wheat and all other crops have actually failed because of poor management. Right now, we are becoming a net importing country; a country that imports almost everything. This country relies a lot on importation. Even clothes are being imported and yet, we can have the cotton ginneries and mills to make clothes for our people. 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."
}