Sh150m interest free loans to benefit farmers

The Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Foundation has partnered with the Baringo government to rehabilitate the Kimalel goat market.

This is aimed at ensuring that the annual goat auction becomes regular and sustainable.

KCB has also committed Sh150 million in interest-free loans to livestock farmers in the county.

The money will be awarded as credit and targets those at the grassroots in a bid to fight poverty.

KCB Group Chairman Ng’eny Biwott said the bank would help the county and other arid and semi-arid regions seek markets in Africa, the Middle East, the Gulf and other red meat-consuming nations.

Mr Biwott, who made the remarks yesterday at the launch of the Kimalel Market Rehabilitation exercise, said plans were underway to make the market a reference market for goats and sheep in the country.

He said they would make it the first auction to integrate animal quality with price index, a move expected to determine country’s  livestock prices in a bid to improve herders’ living standards.

“The renovation is part of the wider initiative to develop physical structures at the current site and implement a modern commodity system that includes automation, standardisation and grading of animals,” said Biwott.

INFORMAL TRADE

Biwott asked the county government to revive collapsed livestock farmers’ co-operative societies to enable them access credit facilities and take pride in marketing.

He said out of the 22 million goats and sheep in Kenya today, 1.2 million are in Baringo. Despite this figures, livestock farmers remain the poorest people in the country, he said.

“Livestock markets are dominated by informal trade. There are too many middle men — animals pass through as many as four middle men between the owner and the buyer, leading to poor returns,” the bank chairman said.

The rehabilitation is part of KCB’s plans to turn the annual market into a weekly and monthly event by 2015.

Last year alone, the county government raised Sh3.1 billion from livestock sales.