Sammy Weya — transcript

Swila Ltd

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:01 [Music] Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 21 of uh the African do podcast. Today we're very privileged to have uh Sammy wear an old friend. Uh we're going to talk uh about a lot of things entrepreneurship largely around agriculture. We'll dabble a bit into some politics because Sam did spend some time as a as a politician and we'll see if we can explore the congregants between entrepreneurship agriculturally and uh the politics and where we are going as a nation. So Sam welcome to the uh African do podcast. Thank you very much. I mean I've known you since you were in Tam. You were in Tam. Yes. At Carnival. Yeah. those days those days when when we were young young and bright and bushy tailed you know and very gifted at the time you can say thank you thank you very much and uh that's when we met it's many years ago it is '90s

0:58 right it was uh the actually it was 2000 exactly 2000 is when I started that's when I started yeah my career 25 years ago yeah so it's nice meeting you and uh I think you saw me when I was talking about uh about maze and the issues of m and that's where I want us to start um so I think um I say because of my work in hospitality and tourism right we get to see agricultural supply chains yes more than most in the sense that most people um they relate with agriculture based on the supply of what they find in the market or not right but when you get into a space Yes. When you're you're buying in bulk. Yes. You know, then you begin to see the gaps and the challenges and the challenges that exist in our agriculture. Yes. And Kenya is I think we've reached a stage where we talk about agriculture. Um because we have a rich history of being an agricultural nation. Yeah. We

2:06 we talk about agriculture very generically. Yes. Yeah. H almost from a space uh where most people would think there's nothing wrong you know largely because um commercial if you have the money in your pockets you can basically buy every anything you want and the cosmopolitan nature of our urban centers are such that we are even importing you know in the Kenya we grew up with importing fruit was totally unheard of you know absolutely absolutely but now you walk into your average um branded um vegetable store in an urban center Nairobi, Nakuru, Elder and you'll find some imported goods. Not some a lot. A lot. Yes. And so let's let's start there and and start with what is it about our agriculture that you feel is not working? Let's start from the reality. Yeah. Uh we're importing a lot of our foods. Mhm. Uh number one is wheat. We're importing

3:15 wheat from Russia. Mhm. The second one is rice. We're importing from the Asian countries. Yes. We importing a million metric tons of rice every year. A million metric tons. We are consuming 1.2 million metric tonses. We are producing 200,000 metric tons mainly in Mhm. which is on 38,000 acres which is now maxed. Yes. Uh the next best place to grow rice is in uh coastal areas. Mhm. And in in the lake basin region where you talk about Aero Loan Zoya uh Kuja uh those are irrigation schemes that are put up by by World Bank. Yes. And uh the potential is vast. Uh currently we we're doing about 17,000 acres in the western part of Kenya. Mhm. The potential is 280,000 acres, okay, of irrigation systems already in place. So, the fact that we are spending rice is completely lopsidedness from where I sit. Uh I've done the figures. It cost about 72,500 to do an acre, including

4:23 insurance and the inputs. Yes. And your profit is is another 70,000. A product you can do within 4 months from plant from seed to harvesting. What people don't realize things have changed with times and uh governments need to be involved, policies need to be involved. Agriculture in this country today is devolved. It's the responsibilities of governors to make sure that they commercialize agro business in their counties and they're not doing it. Governors that have done it, I remember when he was governor of Muranga, he invested in milk uh cooling plants. him invested in giving seedlings of avocados to farmers. Today, Muranga is the biggest export of avocado as we sit because of the investment and the leadership that he gave. Yeah. In in in Moranga. Uh and that's the kind of leadership we want. We want governors who are coming in and we need leadership that can help propel through policies

5:22 even at the county level and the central government level. Today we are big importers of rice from of maze for example from Uganda and Tanzania. They don't consume it. And we're importing 500,000 metric tons of rice every of maze every year. Yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous. When importing oil, we're spending about 28 billion shillings importing elbow oils from Malaysia and and the countries that produce it. So, we're asking ourselves what don't we have do? What are we not doing right in this country? So, let me ask you because using I I'll I'll piggyback on your rice example and just stick there a minute a minute. You said we consuming 1.2 metric 1.2 million metric tons and are producing 200,000. Yeah. So there's a gap there of a million metric tons. So that sounds pretty obvious. Yeah. In the sense and you're not talking about a country that lacks where to produce.

6:18 You've named three or four other areas apart from where which is the bedrock of of rice. So why isn't it happening? Because the the the farmers don't have the they don't have finances. finances not being given to farmers today. If you give farmers inputs and I keep on telling the the government that's what they say he won't give fertilizer I won't give inputs go and farm what will the farmer do he doesn't even have money for school fees he will sell that those inputs those inputs to get to live so you you from what we need to do as a country is number one aggregate these farmers using technology it's being done all over the world aggregate because they are small farmer holders and it is not commercial viable to do one acre 2 acres it's commercially viable If you're putting blocks of 500, 1,000 acres in blocks, aggregate these lands and come

7:07 in with a financial model that the guy does not, he becomes a manager. He doesn't become a farmer because he can't. So go in with commercial tractors, go in commercial harvesters, go in with drones, go and commercialize those areas. Yeah. And I I can tell you today if we did that within a turn of one year, Kenya will be food secure. Look at our neighbors Uganda. Look at our neighbors Tanzania. Tanzania is going aggressively giving young people farms, giving them finance for those farms, helping them through the first stages of their farming lives, training them. That's the only way we can get our young people to learn and to make money. Yeah. I I saw we people pointing out uh this irrigation scheme in Tana River. Yes. Gala Kalu. Where what should a government do in a place like Golo Kalu? There's water, there's land. Take in build 100,000 houses put take your take

8:02 universities take schools take hospital put the infrastructure then take a whole society of young people to go and start their lives there in schools in health centers in hospitals so that they can be engaged in whether be mechanics there'll be guys who are doing farming the guys driving tractors there'll be guys using drones and you create a whole economy in that area that is how you spread out this country look at the northern corridor where we're supposed to all the way from Lamu to to the north. Open up that area, open activities in that area, open agroforestry. Yeah. In in South Africa in the in the ' 70s, they passed policies in South Africa that finance institutions, banks, insurance companies, uh pension funds could invest in agroforestry. We have a lot of land. Give it to people. Go and do commercial forests like they did colonialist did. They did in South Sudan. They went and

8:54 planted thick forest. They went and planted eucalyptus forest. You go, you plant saddlewood forest. You go, you plant all these forest things that you can commercialize today. South Africa. Mhm. Today is a not net export of timber. Okay. They exporting timber to China, slices of timber comes back into Africa and the rest of the world. MDF furniture. So that is how we should be thinking. Create wealth. And creating wealth is having a plan. M and having a plan is what we are failing to do in this country. So let let me let me bring another aspect to this because it's an aspect that is we you have been a a member of parliament so you understand the workings of government better than most. Yeah. Right. And one of the challenges I personally have with the way the system runs now, particularly as a result of um in agricultural policy, there's very little that we have determined for ourselves. Yes. As

9:54 Kenyans that we need. Yes. Yeah. There's always some body or another. Yeah. And um whether it's a a DFI that's funding our agricultural uh strategy, is that part of the problem? Another part of the problem is that foreigners come here and they won't deal direct with government. They don't deal direct with the people. Yes. They don't want to deal direct with the entrepreneurs. And that's a big problem because you're coming and dealing with somebody who is not interested in deploying and assisting. People are more interested in how they can make money out of that that that product. As somebody who's you have people already doing certain things. Yes. Look for those people and find out what they're doing, their experiences, their challenges. And that is where you start from. You can't start giving somebody who has done nothing. M right. Give farmers farmers who already

10:44 farming. Yes. People already producing. Work with those people as as as as development partners. Find their challenges. Support them instead of going creating paperworks that don't make head or tail about the whole aspects. People like us have spent time studying, reading, looking, involving experts. I've involved Kalo, Kenya forest services, gum institutions which are there to help the public. Yes. To assist you in the knowledge that you require. Yeah. And they have they write all sorts of we've even funded some of these things because they have to be reports written to give the experts and pay for their time. Yeah. and we've gotten a lot of information ourselves out of out of the the gnome. Okay? So, we know what needs to be done, right? It's it's fictitious and I mean people I want to say it's fitious because people keep on asking can this grow here? Can this grow

11:38 there? Can this grow here? Look for example in Egypt desert they are producing food for us. Yes. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, people are planting trees along the roads. If you drive from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, there's forest on both sides of the road in the desert where we have I mean in in Ethiopia or cover Ethopia planted 15 billion trees. That's why you see the water patterns in Kenya changing the effects of what they did during co planting 15 billion trees that rainfall has made our lake water tables rise like Victoria's risen lake bingo and lake both water because that we plant it go all the way south and we are cutting trees and one of my concerns that we not supporting commercial forests in this country that is where we should go that in in in South Africa today because they made so much money for forest they will only nema in South Africa will only

12:36 allow you to do 10% of your land because you will not grow anything else there's nothing you can invest and get returns more than agroforestry okay there's nothing if you do the calculations it's it's phenomenal you go on internet do what how many trees per acre you see there 600 trees per acre in 7 years a trees 4,000 shillings multiply 24 million shillings you've waited over 7 years your investment will not be more than for 600 TE is at 500 not be more than 300,000 shillings. M so allow me now to introduce Swilla. It's Swilla Limited. So Swilla Limited is your outfit. It's my outfit. Yeah. And it's um um when I was reading up on it. It's agroforestry but you also do a lot of agricultural innovation. Right. Right. Now my first question is you mentioned uh that you um you have interacted and continue to interact with a lot of the government bodies in

13:35 agricultural research. Yes. Yes. Do you feel that we're utilizing that talent enough and what has your experience been with Calro in that regard? I I sit to these scientists and they they they don't understand why county governments are not working with them closely. Okay. uh because they in many counties they can even do uh partnerships. Yes. Because the government institution that has trained professionals. Yes. And we have food scientists, we have uh people there with nutrition people bringing up uh uh um extension work services. The science agriculture is a science. Yes. You start with the soils. You start with the preparation of the soils. How how are the soils going to be prepared to be able to allow you to plant and what needs to be done for that soil to be prepar prepared? Fertilizer we talk about organic fertilizer culture vi

14:32 using traditional earthworms. Yeah. atwams to able to break down waste matter which is uh vegetation and animal waste to break it down to be fertilizer even including putting eggshells things like eggshells putting calcium in the soil so these are things that I mean technology and experience if you go to India they spend a lot of time places like India using organic farming world over today if you go to America and in the UK it's a premium to be a organic farmer is a premium because they you know your source of food you know there's no pesticides using rabbit urine for example to to spray your cs to keep the pest away even cattle urines use those as a pesticide so we look at what how do we grow things organically today and I can say traditionally in Africa as Africans we were food secure yes we had granaries every home had a granary because they

15:27 knew there's going to be a weather which is weather can turn around and there could be drought we are lucky in many parts of Kenya that we of rivers, lakes, m and streams flowing 365 days a year. We have temperatures between 23 and 32° January to January. We don't have winters. We don't have autumns. We don't have cold seasons. So, we're able to get double the growth. A tree that takes 40 years to grow in Europe takes 7 to 10 years to grow in Africa. And in Kenya because we're at the equator, we have the best set to sitting as a sitting because we have 12 hours sunlight which gives you growth. So we having growth January to January. So we are lucky we are sitting in the one of the best places in the world in the on the equator and we are not consuming as a country making ourselves self-sufficient in food production which is so let's talk a bit about Swam and your

16:20 agroforestry journey. Yes. Yes. Um I know you you plant but you also experiment a lot. Maybe you can tell us a bit about this commercial what commercial forestry lessons have you learned on your own about what to grow not grow but what can and cannot grow and so on. So one one thing I'll tell you one problem that we've had over a period of time is that when we when we leave land pounded by animals for a long time it forms a crust. Yes. You need to airate that soil. Mhm. When it forms a crust, it creates what you call uh acidic soils. Yes. So, you need to kill the acid. How do you kill the acid? You get industrial lime and put it on the land. So, first of all, you break the soil, put lime to kill the acid, then put organic matter to get the thing running again, which is organic, and plow it and then plant. When you do soil test to see what deficiencies there are in the soil, I

17:15 mean this idea of government buying blanket fertilizer and supplying the whole country is madness. Okay, it's complete madness. I mean the soils in is different. So you need to know what needs to be added. So that's why blended fertilizer is key. Only after soil test samples have been done across different and each sham my shamba can be as yours 20 km away or five there's different soil formulations. So you can't say this whole constituency or this whole county we're giving you fertilizer. We give you fertilizer. So those are things that we are misleading our people. Number two, people are moving away from these fertilizers that are synthetic because today if you see areas like in central Kenya where they've been doing Rift Valley has been doing commercial farming, there's stomach cancer that is manipulating those years. Things like Round have been banned in America. If you see the

18:04 chemicals have been banned that were still consuming in Africa have been banned because they've been proven to make people sick. Uh our parents, our grandparents lived 200 and something years. They were food nutrition, food consumption. You are sitting on the side of the road, a guy's doing vegetables, carbon dioxide from the vehicles there, it's on a sewer line, hplori there. So you must know your source of food and I encourage Kenyans to have your own vegetable gardens. You can even do it at a mate level because now we have vegetable that can be stuck even in an apartment. In Asia, they're doing it everywhere. in small apartments they're doing it in estates that you have your own vegetable garden which will give you your food security from there in the rural areas we our parents were food the grandparents were food secure they had

18:55 their own chickens animals what they produced their own food so they were not buying food was there Africans were producing their food this commercial basis thing that we're saying fast food it's killing our societies and the food coming of those food fast food as you is it's it's dramatic in Asia. I can tell you the rice they're selling here is not the best rice first in first out. They're giving you 10 year old rice because they not give you their best rice. That's what they exporting to us in Africa. Sugar, sugar is poison. People don't consume sugar anymore, processed sugar. We bring it out of Brazil. Africa is one of the biggest consumers of sugar. That's why our people are getting sick. People are not consuming sugar. They know the dangers of processed sugar what it is. Why would you go into that? And now people just consuming sugar at a

19:45 dramatic rate. I said maze maze is used for bofuels and animal feeds not for human consumption. Our traditional crops people lived healthily. Sweet potatoes, cassava, millet, vegetables, traditional vegetables, local milk. They were making their own like musik and yogurt and and cooking oil and from cow fat and uh uh they they were cooking in pots getting nutrition from clay pots. Slow cooking of food. Process of food. Food was a process cooked in two 5 minutes. Yeah. And breaking down meat was not consumed straight from the butcher. You have to break the enzymes. M they were drying it and curing it and making it consumable by human beings. But now you go take meat straight from the butcher. Even the Europeans, they cure it for 21 days because it has enzymes that need to break down and those are things that make human beings sick. So we're consuming things that are not making us

20:47 well as a society and these are things that we need to reverse quickly. Some of us are here passionate about these things. I'm a tree nursery. I got the I got the idea because I've seen how to nurseries are established. I've built it by nursery getting seeds from Ke the scientist. I'm getting some through them by importing saddlewood which I know is a huge two kilos $200. If you go on the internet you see of sandalwood of saddlewood Indian saddlewood it's produces pharmaceut pharmaceutical industry is used also in the cosmetic industry for perfumes and stuff. These are things that we need to show Kenya. I the king of uh the Netherlands, not of the of Malaysia, they used to grow rice in Malaysia. He said, "Why are you guys growing rice? Let's look at a product that we can have high value." Then they start doing palm oil. That's how Malaysia became a superpower. They're

21:42 producing palm oil, sugar cane in Brazil, in in in in Malaysia is grown at the coast, not in tropical forest like Kakamea. Kakamea is the biggest tropical forest eastern central Africa. You go to Singapore, they they put a place you pay $10 to go in just to have an effect of a tropical forest. Yet we have a natural tropical forest which we're not consuming. And around there, Kakamea County should be the one of the biggest dairy producers. Grant grassland put dairy cattle there to produce milk, cheese, butter to export to Congo, the Congo that buying from Brazil, butter and milk, taking milk, buying from Brazil and we should be able to make run this economy even as Africans. counties intertrading Kenya inter trading with our neighbors producing food. Uh we know today we have issues of employment. Yeah. In the country for the youth. Mhm.

22:41 Invest in the youth to go into agro business. Let them love it and make money in that business and use technology because now it's it's mechanized. It's not going with the jbe in the 21st century. We cannot be digging with jambs and cows pulling the holes. Madness. We can't even make commercial hand tractors in this country to push with a with a with a plow. Those are things we should be looking working with our institutions, universities. We know for example in Asia they they like consuming silk. The Chinese have moved to a middle class. They don't want to get into their hands dirty. M we should be making producing Malbury is producing silk from silk worms and exporting to those countries because this in Asia silk is a is a is a is a product that they look as for the elite and for royalty. Yeah. So those are things we should there are little things

23:35 that we should do value add. Mhm. Teaching our people how are we how are we conserving food y before the colonialists came we're drying our vegetables. We're salting our fish. We're drying our meats. We're storing keeping milk cool and making proc processing our milk ourselves. I think we're doing Yeah. Now we're keeping doing things lopsidedly. So, so, so Sami, let me let me let me you you're a unique guest in the sense that you have sat in the apex policym body in the country as a as a member of parliament and uh you are now an agricultural entrepreneur. Yes. Yeah. Using the resources that are available to you in the country to to learn and grow and develop an agricultural venture. Right. What you're saying sounds simple enough and sounds obvious then what is it where where where are we missing the boat where are we getting it wrong where are we failing because we

24:39 are where we are I'll tell you something interesting huh yeah even today you don't have to buy equipment to to do value ad yes ki will incubate you in kisumu in Nairobi young people who want to do value ad go to kild we should not be buying ketchup M or H sauce or chili sauce from outside Kenya. All these things we be able to produce here locally. Uh supplements, you know, these pharmaceutical companies are making supplements which don't make sense. Yeah. How do you get your vitamin C? Pawa powder. Uh how do you get uh other vitamin C? Minga, how do you get things that keep you well? Things like neem malbe tea, right? uh the the yellow acacia the the reason why the skin of the giraffe is smooth because it eats the leaves of yellowacasia. It gives and these are things just go Indians have this record just go on the internet guava powder, minga powder, neem powder, nim tea,

25:38 malberry tea, all these things, wines which are made from malberry wine, all these things are on the internet. M our young people are using the internet m to be followers of people instead of being creative. Yes. And their span is is is on Tik Tok 1 minute. Yeah. And you see the amount of time we're consuming on Tik Tok as Kenyan youth. 75% of internet consumpt consumption today is on Tik Tok. True. On the internet. But it's for following other people instead of creating leaders who are developing things that can build this country of ours. So uh we lack and what we need even as from young age is to train these young people of ours the importance of of agroforestry. I give a simple example when you go to China today you go to Germany for along the roads there are three layers of trees. Yeah. Both sides in the middle, both sides. Why? Because carbon dioxide is

26:41 coming from the vehicles need to be blocked by these trees consuming carbon to keep the society on the other side on the other side with clean, healthy air, right? River banks along the rivers, if you fly into Amsterdam today, the canals are covered with vegetation because if you don't cover those canals with vegetation, rivers are flowing, they continue eroding. M and you you need to save the river banks, plant bamboo, plant the necessary trees that need to then even bamboo line the river, plant trees, acas, plant berries, birds will eat the waste of the you those fish, those rivers will be introduced, fish will be introduced. Yeah. our seasonal rivers after every kilometers we supposed to during the dry season use dynamite to crack the riverbed so that we can do what you call recharging our water tables like in Kitangela here when

27:34 the rivers have dried every kilometer if you're able to but now what do you do we have an offlow all the way to Tar River out of the river because we don't want to recharge our water tables and only way we can now we're digging water digging bowls and we're not recharging our water table it's science trees bring rain whether you like it or not. Now, now Sami, you're foxing me and I'll tell you why. We've said that the the the talent is here. Yes. Yeah. You you deal with the scientists in the Carro and the Kefrey and and the Keith and all these whole host of bodies and my learning has been that there's amazing talent of scientists in there. So talent is there, top global talent. We have uh we are blessed with the land. We have it. Yeah. Rain. We have rain. We have water. Yeah. It all sounds very obvious. Yes. But we still come back to it's not

28:34 been done. Yes. So where is the failing? Leadership. Leadership is finishing us. Yes. Yeah. Leadership. I I became a me member of parliament at a very young age. Yes. If I went to parliament today, I'll do nothing but make laws. Uh-huh. If I became a senator today, yes. I will not be doing these things people leaders are doing. Tell us more of the laws you would make. I I'll make laws that uh that will enable farmers to get the necessary credit that they require in this country. I'll make laws that will compel government to provide the farmers with extension workers. Yes, I'll make laws that will make sure that land is consumed for instead of left idle. Today if you go to England or Europe, you have a piece of land and you're doing nothing with it. It reverts back. It reverts back to the state or even if it's bushy I mean it's madness that Kenya

29:25 government will spend every year cleaning the bush outside your homes and the land is yours in foreign countries that doesn't happen. I mean you as long as your land is along the reserve it's your responsibility to keep that piece of land clean. True. And and and but today we are we doing some madness called bush clearing. Every year government is bush clearing for people who own land along the neighboring of those properties. It's ridiculous. Uh I I'll also make sure that there policies that will put in the necessary uh levies that will block imports that are not going to be good for our consumption. We're importing things that are not even sometimes good for our own human consumption for our people. No one is checking through the regulations. There are no tariffs. There's no guidelines. And even for example, if we're importing rice and imputing tariff, that money

30:19 should be as we build capacity for local company, that money should be brought back to build the rice industry or bought back to build another industry. Today I tell people shenan farmers, the guy who makes money is the miller. M he he puts a factory 10 months 4,500 metric tons of of he's made his profit. The farmer in Brazil what happens? You are paid for sucross value of your sugarcane. Mhm. And you're paid for by gas value for every 1,000 acres they keep a container that will come and differentiate. We're spending money on transporting sugar against gains you what nonsense sugar a container where does the first process remove the sucross value remove the vagas you get paid for that but here they pay you a flat figure flat rate yeah what are you doing so interesting you mentioned that because that's the other area I found out with milk you know in in in the Dutch and the Dutch

31:18 are very advanced on the dairy front but milk is paid based on butterfat content, you know, microbial content. The lower it is, the better the price. The higher the butter fat, the higher the price because you can do more with the milk. And so that's a similar situation that you're talking about. That's a similar situation. We need to be how the rest of the world is doing and there are labs to test these things. Yes, we must make sure that the fertilizer that come that is coming in the ground is not kind of poison. Today, a lot of food we cannot take export to Europe because by the time they leave, you have to do the tests. make sure there's no chemicals in it. That's how we're consumming these things that are coming to Kenya. The ke should be doing regular random checks on all these products. That's what their jobs as a as a government institution to do. Not they

32:11 should be doing regular checks. Have you encountered a failure of policy? Have you in your you're now doing commercial farming? you're you're setting up your tree nursery. Have you encountered this policy that you talk about if you were to go back to parliament that you'd seek to change? There there's so many things that we need to change as as in when it comes to policy. The reason what's members of parliament job is to legislate to oversight. Yes. And to make laws. Okay. Not to go to funerals for as an undertaker. I don't know as an undertaker. Yeah. Every time there's a funeral called guys are there in mass it's like a like MP's work is an undertaker because when somebody dies the first person to be called is a member of parliament oh somebody has died yeah what next now you have to get him a coffin you have to get him it becomes it's madness

33:03 that's a nice one undertaker okay so okay so earlier at the beginning of the podcast You mentioned something that stuck with me. Yeah. You said that if you implement uh these changes in agricultural policy Yes. Um the turnar around could be a year. Yes. That that sounds short. A product. It's a 4 month product. Mhm. From planting to harvesting. Yes. Soya, sunflower, cotton. Yeah. Uh beans. Coffee is two and a half years. Yeah. But in the process, you can put beans in there. You can plant do nitrogen fixing you know today Kenya is number 11 in Africa. It used to be number one in what in production production coffee. Yes. We can't pay our foreign debt if we're not exporting. Yes. All these real estates. In fact, I don't know why we allowed as a government to allow Yes. Yes. become a coffee which are going towards getting yes we left those coffee plate because they're running as

34:18 foreign exchange and moved real estate in this direction put the infrastructure in place we can't real estate cannot bring us dollars yes in into this country yes it's coffee that does today Ethiopia is the number one coffee exporter and they are even having struggling they want us to give them the lu port so they can do their volumes to China they open 2,000 Starbucks Chinese have become a middle classm M so they're consuming they become they're trying to behave like Americans they think the American lifestyle is the best and the British lifestyle running coffee shops iPads that kind of lifestyle which our Kenyan youth are also trying to get into not realizing that these things are the ones that reduce you. Yes. And the Americans and the British are trying to reverse that. They're going organic. They're making sure they're eating the

35:04 right foods. They're trying to get away from the fast food kind of lifestyle. Yeah. Because that's what's killing them. Let's talk a bit. That's where the diseases are coming from. heart diseases, pressure diseases, all these things because of the poor quality of what you're taking in. So, let's talk a bit about the innovation side of your agricultural journey. Yeah. You um and I know from your nursery, from the list that you sent me of seedlings that we can buy from you. Yeah. That you are there's a lot that you're taking that's indigenous and growing, but there's also a lot of innovation and experimental stuff. How has that journey been and what triggered it or what made you say, "Oh, yeah, I want to try wood." I tried sandalwood. It's doing well. I tried olive I did, you know, I did the trimming the other day. Now they're producing olives and you can see them

35:54 buds coming out. Yes. And I it was calculated comes after 5 years. I'm seeing four and a half. The buds are now coming out for the olives. So I'm expecting uh Italian and and Moroccan olives. Yes. Very soon to harvest. To harvest soon. Guava. I told you guava helps with poster cancer. If you do the guava leaves, it helps with high blood pressure. Uh Japanese jam. Uh African blackwood is used for making instruments, which is for making guitars, for making flutes. Yes. Uh for carvings. So those are kind of things I'm using. And where do you get the seeds from? From Kris Kenya forest. Oh, really? I get local. I get the seeds local. Then I produce the seedlings. Uhhuh. We have them. Or you can even go to the forest, send young people to forest cuz seed the seeds you get from the trees. Yes. Pick the seeds. People say you have to buy pick the seeds and

36:41 go and put in nursery and germinate. And it's the same process and old school. It's a very basic process. In fact, use use old milk packets as a packet. You can't buy that any. Use uh yogurt. Use containers. Use containers for milk packets. Use containers for cups that are being given out for water. use all these things, recycled bottles that can cut the top off and use them as a you don't have to go and buy plastic bags. You can recycle uh these things we're using in kitchens and get seed and produce your own seed nursery even as small as it is so we can be able to produce trees is to vital society and we came to this world to make it a better world and to multiply things not to remove but what have we done as a society? M I was involved in Kefka Kenya forest growers association where we had memberships we did a report with Bryce waters groupers we the poor in Kenya and in East Africa

37:44 are spending the most expensive way of cooking using charcoal charcoal kilo of charcoal is 150 you put in the fire it's gone I mean it's ridiculous world over it's the rich that use charcoal for barbecue go to Germany go to America you can't use clean cooking. We should be looking at clean cooking for our citizenships. Yeah. Not this expensive thing they're doing buying charcoal. And we are consume 80% of the cooking today done in East Africa is charcoal. Yeah. Which makes it sure that we're in the reverse. Yeah. So how do we what do we need? We need a marshall plan. What what what do we need in terms of rejuvenating? We need to start having the right conversation. How do we mainstream? How do we take this thing to the masses uh and make it a thing? What me and you are doing here is is a start. Is a start. Everything is start with baby

38:42 steps. You must crawl before you walk before you start running. You can't just wake up as a child and start running. So these are the baby steps we're taking ourselves who think that we are in society. We can sp we can volunteer our time to try and tell the public what's important for them to try and get this word out there. Let's go and do this thing ourselves. There are people sitting on empty land. Add value to it. You wake up 7 years down the line. It is there's value you've added. The tree you planted, you've spent 200 shillings buying the seedlings. Another 200 shillings planting. In in in five seven years time, that tree is worth 67,000 shillings. It's an investment, right? Yeah. Let's get guys planting trees in lands. They're sitting idle. add value to those properties they have them plant trees right I was in the game parks the other day and I asking myself

39:36 even in the game parks elephants are bringing down trees animals are consuming the vegetation we're not planting we should block those game parks like they do we do with p paradox in in in animals take 2,000 acres 2,000 acres 3,000 acres block the animals off there plant trees put in vegetation because in the going future the When these trees are consuming giraffes and animals are consuming the plants where we going to how are we rejuvenating? Even you look at things that are simple as I said in the river banks we're not protecting our river banks. Yes. I was walking in and kura forest where you have a river we are pumping raw sewer and putting plastics into Narubi river. Narubi river used to have fish. Yes. Where are the bylaws? Yes. Who's looking after? Who is monitoring? Yes. What is our county government doing? That's the responsibility of the county government

40:30 to make and nema and all these organizations that are supposed to make sure Kenyans are living healthily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We are pumping roa into our into our rivers into our lakes in Kisumu. You can see there's a problem with the fish because somebody's pumping roa. Who are these doing these things? Huh? See, they should have they should have things that protect us. and people who are taking small kickbacks are killing their people. Is there is there you you've now talked about you talked about um um um the people who are benefiting when we the early example of rice. Yeah, there's a beneficiary there somewhere. Yeah, there's a beneficiary in the sewer example that we have just discussed pumping. I can tell you now there are guys who are importing these things that make a king killing. They're importing Kenyans also doing it. They're importing

41:28 rice for a few people to benefit. They importing sugar for a few guys to benefit. They're importing wheat for a few I mean the other day farmers were crying. We are producing wheat and yet someone imports wheat at a cheap price. Low quality wheat to kill us. The local guys. Seriously. M serious board the work of serious bodies. In fact, with the law that we have now, we have something called warehouse reciting. Yes. Where farmers should be able to take their produce straight to these silos that are sitting Yes. and get paid money at a premium so that we don't start this nons of importing rice, importing wheat. We shouldn't be in that game. As a country, we love our citizens. Yes. We should be pushing our citizens to be able to produce for themselves. Yeah. Now you have just reminded me about something that hit the press a few years ago and then died down. Dominion. Yes.

42:27 What was the story there? Dominion had a good idea. Yes. He got to 3,800 acres. I was the MP in the area. We're the ones who encouraged him to come. Yes. We gave him 17,000 acres. I told him you need you need your public to be involved in this thing. Yes. Not a solo thing. Not a solo thing. So I told him what you do take the domain 12,000 because you've got enough to keep your mill running take 12,000 get 12,000 families give them an acre each because this is public land train them how to produce on that one acre and you have the mill you have the value ad they'll bring back to you the produce sell they make some money as locals and that is how we would have they would have gone even to their farms and that's how we have been today today if that model worked and I can tell you why I'm frust frustrated about that farm is that that farm was smack. The Germans

43:17 came in and the model was there. They with the government spent 250 million shillings doing a physibility study on what should be done there. This this uh fish that we're doing like in Asia, Malaysia, you you when you plant rice 2 months, yeah, you get two months old fingerlings, put them in the rice patties so that the rice becomes organic. M by the time it's it's 6 months the fish is big enough to be sold. So you're getting two produce. You're getting fish. Yes. And you're getting the rice and it's organic. Okay. Because where fish is operated, you can't use chemical. Yes. Yeah. And they're eating the insects. And they're eating the insects. And and the pesticide, the pests and the droppings are fertilizer. Yes. For the for the rice. So you're killing two birds with one stone. There's there's a park that's supposed to be there for there's a there was a plan what you call a Yala swamp um

44:10 development plan there's a animal sanctuary inside that place that was supposed to be designed sugarce was supposed to be put in the dry area when you open the canals into the dry area and the lower part now where there was rice is supposed to be produced we are planting sugarcane and you know in a swamp which is a wetlands you can't plant sugarcane in the wetlands so the person who there is doing something illegal and even I told them that you can't plant world over there's nowhere you plant sugarcane in the wetlands rice you can do it because you're integrating with fish yes and you're making sure that place is productive and that's the direction we should have taken so after that he Obasan came here went and gave him 100,000 acres in Nigeria is doing it he kicked him out but Obasa now he's running that 100,000 acres is a big fish farmer's a big rice producer using what he saw here in Kenya

45:02 in Nigeria. Wow. So you also made a comment that if you were to talk to your 34 year old self, your MP journey would have been very different. So what would you what would Sammy wear today tell a 34 year old Sammy wear who's walking into parliament in case there are any Jenz's who are planning campaigns to go in. do your work. Yeah. Legislate, oversight. Those are key work of a member of parliament to legislate and to oversight. This idea of going for funerals, this idea of doing raising all sorts of mannerism things, it's not a job of a member of parliament. Parliament is legislate, make laws. Yeah. That will benefit the people. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Longterm. Even beyond your career. And so that that making laws would you argue that it takes some understanding? So surround yourself with the people with the knowledge like you have done with the scientists.

46:06 Parliament parliament has the all the the has that infrastructure infrastructure in place. Okay. Yeah. And when I went to a study I went to do in Finland, the Finn spend 3% of the GDP with with with researchers. Mhm. So that they know what you need to do. Yes. So the researchers come up with ideas, universities, colleges, they spend money, the innovations, they come up with the ideas, then they bring the politicians on board, they bring the government on board, they bring the businessmen on board and tell them you have come up with this model. We want you guys to be from a scientific point of view. Okay? You must invest in your universities to be the innovations. Even that's what they do in the states. Okay. Okay. If you go to uh Finland, a six-year-old knows what the job of a member of parliament is. Yes. A member of what the speaker's job is. what the

46:54 job of government is here. We don't know. Our guys want CDF 120 million and they're not legislating a year 120 million a year is what you're talking about. Yeah. I mean if you legislate properly you can you greater capacity and that that is only 2 and a half% of the budget. Yes. Yeah. The budget that's what we should be giving universities to innovate. Yes. We should be making our own aircrafts. We should be making our own tractors. We should be making our own irrigation systems as a country. Yeah. We should be manufacturing as a country. Yeah. Today where we are putting the SG online, the idea was to go and get produce out of the raw materials out of out of out of Congo cuz all the raw materials are in Congo. The Chinese and the Americans and all these guys are ripping that place up. Ripping raw materials taking out. as a country we should take a like 10,000

47:47 acres where we're sitting pretty is a place like we should take 10,000 acres run the SG there run the SG to the port of Kisumu we have 200 million people to to feed and to give products to we're in business we've got a growth Kenya can get a growth of 20% in the lake basin region exporting yes and you have an airport yeah you have international airport you can fly you know from from Kisum is a shorter distance plane from Nairobi. Yeah. And the altitude is right, you can leave with a full load of of cargo because the way it's seeing at sea level. Yes. At the lower level, not like Nairobi. Nairobi is high. So you can only fly 75%. Cost is good. You can also fly full loads. These are things that we know. Yes. We should be flying into the our fish. We should be flying onto the shelves in Amsterdam from lake to overnight within 8 hours. 12 hours.

48:41 You can move from the lake within flight 6 8 hours. Do you think that's an area that has improved? They've gotten it right. Fish. Do you know how much 12 to 10 a kilo? Yeah, we can be flying fish. This thing of consuming fish locally importing fish is a big joke to us. Yes, we The problem we have right now is fish feed. What is the what is in the fish feed that is required? Sun cotton seed cake, sunflower uh seed cake, leg shrimps. That's the ingredients for for fish feed. feed so soy is coming from Uganda cotton seedcake is coming from Tanzania leg shrimps are coming from Lake Victoria to mills in Nakuru and brought back becomes too expensive our cost of feeds the cost of feeds in Kenya are 40% more both for animal feeds fish feed chicken feeds than in Uganda and Tanzania because of just people not putting their heads their mind to it we

49:35 don't even as a government is not even thinking at that level yeah Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Hey, Sammy, you've uh you've educated us and you've given us a lot to think about. You know, I I grew up my hometown is Khifi. Yeah. And uh it pains me to date to watch because we grew up as Kifi Kashnuts being the backbone of the Khifi economy and it's now lying there derelic, you know, and the the cash farmers are at the mercy of middlemen and the rest. Yet it's something that can be revived. You know, I was in Kif the other day. Yes. What will do well in Kif? I can tell you. Mhm. Palm oil. Yes. Coconuts. Yes. Dates. Mhm. Uh rice. The areas where you're supposed to doing rice in Kif. Yes. The even sugar I told you at the port. Yes. The irrigation. Tana River could do for sugar gain because it's in the right area. Yeah. Even agroforestry. Yeah. Of course, you're near the port,

50:36 you can export. Yeah. And there's acres and acres of land. I went the other day sitting idle. True. Nothing happening. People speculating with pay heavy price for the failure of leadership. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was shown a governor's home. Another one of the governor's home there in Kifi there by the creek water. Not his home where he's built indigenous. Oh yeah. Where he's from. Yeah. Where he's from. There was the colonist put the bhole need just 55,000 shins to revive it. The whole time he was there it was not revived. That's yeah I tell you water to give people drinking water basic. Yeah. I saw the schools there. I was really depressed when I saw the kind of schools that have been put there. I said here there's again a big problem. Yeah. Yeah. Sammy, our hour is up but what a fabulous conversation. Kudos to you one for taking the plunge for going down this path least traveled

51:37 but also for showing us that there's another way out of this quagmire and the solutions are here and they are local it's passion so all the best I'll be buying some seedlings I know I need to place an order for some seedlings from you come and get you you will not regret yes definitely I that sandalwood I I I'm running a even even a blackwood Bab the one they use for making monatina is called sausage. The sausage tree africana sausage tree Africana. Yes. Uh the acasia tree is it's a very it's medicinal nimbinga. Yes. These are things guava powder. Guava trees. Indian guava. Thailand. Guava. Local guava. We ate these things when Excellent. Berries. Malberries. Yeah. Gooseberries. Wow. What a conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, that was episode 21 of the African Do podcast. We thank Sammy Wear, our guest limited uh innovating around

52:45 agroforestry and agriculture in general, trying to show us a different way of how we can run this country. And most importantly, I think at the very basic anyone in your home, in your country, you should be able to feed yourself. That is the very basic I think we should expect. So I hope we have inspired some agriculturalists of some young people to come into agriculture to take the bull by the horns and to help us build a better Kenya. Thank you very much uh for joining us in this episode. [Music]