Kitui goat auction: how to improve its impact

What are some of the steps that can be taken, to improve the impact of the Kitui goat auction?

Well, to my mind, one of the steps that can be taken to improve the impact of the Kitui goat auction is that of holding it more regularly. I mean, what stops us from making the Kitui goat auction a weekly affair, just like the Mombasa tea auction? Isn’t the number of goats reared in Kitui county big enough to sustain such a venture? Those are the lines we need to start thinking along – rather than restricting ourselves to the Baringo goat auction model, yet we know that the latter was more of a political event than an economic event.

Another step that can be taken to improve the impact of the Kitui goat auction is that of publicizing it more seriously. The idea is to get bigger numbers of serious bidders to take part in the Kitui goat auction. We could even take it international. But whatever we do, we have to understand that the success of the Kitui goat auction is likely to be directly proportional to how well publicized it is. Of course, if the auction proves to be a success in terms of hooking up the people who are seeking to sell goats with those who are seeking to buy, it would eventually get to a point where the it wouldn’t need to be directly publicized. It would be self-sustaining, just like the Mombasa tea auction – I mean, when was the last time you came across an ad inviting people to the Mombasa tea auction? The event doesn’t have to be advertised, as the people already know its value. We can get the Kitui goat auction to that level.

Yet another step that can be taken to improve the impact of the Kitui goat auction is perhaps that of reducing the restrictions in it. Rather than insisting that the goats to offer for sale at the Kitui county goat auction have to meet all these hard parameters, we can just leave it upon the herders to bring the goats they have, and let the buyers decide what they want. Otherwise if you impose too high standards, it becomes very hard for the average farmer to meet them, which then  turns the Kitui goat auction into an elitist affair. But that is just my thinking and I could be wrong…