Wajir South MP Mohammed Adow has called for deliberate investment into farmers from the North Eastern region.
Speaking at the Northern Kenya Impact Investment conference on Thursday, Adow said if this is done right, the region could feed the whole country.
"The most debilitating thing on earth is to wait for food handouts. We need these people to stand on their feet. We need these people to be given the chance to prove themselves once again. They were once hardworking pastoralists who are taking care of their livestock, hard working against all the vagaries of nature,
"Moving with their livestock in search of pasture and water. They're used to hard work and they can till the land, the only thing they need is water. That is why we're appealing for investment in these people," he said.
The MP said the region has all it needs to become one of the largest food producing regions in the country and all they need is someone to invest in them.
The legislator said the region has in the past relied on livestock farming and has embraced Agricultural farming and all they lack is investors.
Adow insisted that the region has all the resources required to actualise this.
"We have the land. We have the labour, but for a long time, we've been lacking water. Yet again, we're sitting on one of the biggest aquifers ever. The multi aquifer crosses all the way from Isiolo, Wajir and then crosses the border into Somalia. And this is an underground sea of fresh water, if utilized could change and make northern Kenya as a whole be the breadbasket of this country," he said.
He said once the investors come on board, the farmers will be able to get water through construction boreholes.
Adow said there are plenty of opportunities in the Arid and semi-arid lands including minerals, and huge tracts of land that have not been utilized.
He said each time soil sampling and testing is done, it comes back as fit for agriculture.
"I want the investors to look critically at the multitudes of people who are willing, ready to invest in their land, grow their own food, but who don't have the wherewithal. They should not be forsaken, because they are poor. If they are given the seed money to try and get them what they need, which is water from the underground, this huge opportunity for business," the Wajir South MP added.
