• On Monday, farmers said they usually sell their goats for between Sh10,000 and Sh12,000 at the auction.
• The three-day auction has traditionally been held in December.
Baringo goat farmers are at the mercy of oppressive brokers after the county government once again failed to organise the annual Kimalel Goat Auction.
On Monday, farmers said they usually sell their goats for between Sh10,000 and Sh12,000 at the auction.
“We haven’t had the auction for two consecutive years now forcing us to sell to local brokers for as low as Sh3,000 and Sh5,000 per goat,” Kimalel resident Jeremiah Kurere said.
Kurere said the low prices offered by brokers cannot sustain their needs, like buying food and paying school fees for their children.
“We would have wished the county leadership could help organise the auction this year, considering Covid-19 has relatively subsided,” he said.
The three-day auction has traditionally been held in December.
Farmers had expected that the auction would be held between December 19th and 21st, but there is no indication this will happen.
The last goat auction was in December 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country in March 2020.
In 2019, 2,000 goats were sold fetching Sh20 million compared to 2,600 sold in 2018 which fetched Sh26 million.
The county is inhabited by the Tugen, Pokot and Ilchamus pastoral communities whose livelihoods solely depend on livestock keeping. They raise cows, sheep and goats.
Kimalel chief Reuben Kandagor said he is yet to receive any communication from the county government to mobilise farmers for the auction. “I don’t know. Maybe arrangements are still underway,” he said.
The administrator said the majority of farmers are rushing to sell their animals during the Christmas festivities so they can get cash to pay school fees for their children in January.
Governor Stanley Kiptis on Monday did not pick calls or respond to text messages over the auction.
However, Livestock chief officer Winnie Bore said a huge sum of money was spent in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and the department lacks money to organise the auction.
She said special arrangements were being made to link buyers to farmers on the ground to avoid brokers.
But before then, farmers are forced to sell their animals to brokers, local butchers and restaurants.
Bore said the county is committed to upgrading Maoi abattoir, funded by the European Union, to enhance value addition to livestock production.
Her Agriculture counterpart, Wilfred Kiplagat, said the project is between 85 and 90 per cent complete. "Once in use, the culture of selling live animals will be a thing of the past,” Kiplagat said.
The Kimalel auction was commissioned by former President Daniel Moi in 1986 to improve the living standards of Baringo residents.
The auction, however, stalled upon his retirement in 2002. It was later revived by former Baringo Governor Benjamin Cheboi in December 2014.
Edited by A.N