Narok regional pastoral livelihood resilience project and the local county Government have opened a Sh. 17 Million livestock market at Lolgorian area in Trans Mara West Sub County.
Speaking during the opening of the market Thursday, the Narok governor, Samuel Tunai, said the market with a capacity to hold 1000 cattle and 2500 sheep will go a long way in boosting the lives of the pastoralists’ community.
“Today we have opened this market to better the lives of our people who mainly depend on livestock for their livelihood. We expect the market to attract traders from all the parts of the country,” said Tunai.
The Governor regretted the negative impact caused by Covid-19 pandemic saying one of the most affected sectors was livestock trade as the open air markets had been closed.
At the same time, the governor called on the youth to desist from politics asking them not to be used by politicians to engage in abusive and violent politics that do not bring any gains.
“The youth should take advantage of the market to sell and buy livestock from the new market. It is unfortunate that the politicians take advantage of jobless youth to drag them into dirty politics,” he said.
The county Executive Member in charge of Agriculture Joseph Marindany said they will put up structures to see the youth are trained on basic management skills so that they can successfully do business in the new market.
He lauded the contractor for the good work he has done six months after he was awarded the contract.
“I believe this is the biggest market we have in the county. It is strategically built because it is near Tanzania hence can easily trade with the neigbouring country,” he said.
He reiterated that the market has a modern weighing machine meaning every livestock sold will be weighed to get the exact weight to determine the selling price.
Narok County mainly practices pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed farming for food production to earn living.
Food security is among the four agenda of President Uhuru Kenyatta in his second term which he dedicated to spend his time, energy and resources to achieve.
The President noted that the small scale farmers will get better extensions to accessing the market, and subsidies will be redesigned to increase food yields and improve qualities.
By Ann Salaton
