Kitui Merges Its Agricultural Show, Trade Fair and Investors Conference Into KASTIE 2026

Kitui County has combined three previously separate flagship events – the Kitui Agricultural Show, the county Trade Fair, and the International Investors Conference – into a single event: the Kitui Agricultural Show, Trade and Investment Expo (KASTIE) 2026, running July 23-25 in Kitui town. Sacco Review reported that the merger was announced by County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture and Livestock Development Dr. Kimwele Mbaya at a press briefing, framed explicitly as part of Governor Julius Malombe’s broader strategy to streamline the county’s events calendar around fewer, higher-impact gatherings rather than several smaller, disconnected ones competing for the same limited pool of exhibitors, sponsors, and county resources.

Dr. Mbaya’s stated reasoning for the merger centres on the idea that agriculture, trade, and investment are interdependent parts of the same economic story in Kitui, not three separate sectors that happen to share a calendar slot. A farmer showcasing a new drought-resistant seed variety, a trader looking to move produce more efficiently, and an investor evaluating whether to fund a processing facility are, in this framing, all part of one continuous value chain – and a single unified platform is meant to let those three groups interact directly rather than attending three separate events that rarely overlap in practice.

The expo is organised around Kitui’s six designated Economic and Investment Zones (EIZs): Kyuso-Muumoni-Tseikuru-Tharaka, Mwingi Town and Environs, Mui Basin, Kitui Town and Environs, Kwavonza-Kanyonyoo, and Mutomo-Ikutha-Kanziko-Mutha-Athi. Structuring the event around these zones rather than around sectors alone suggests an intent to showcase geographic investment opportunities directly – the idea that a specific zone within Kitui might have distinct resources, infrastructure, or market access worth pitching to an investor independently of the county as a whole.

The theme organisers have attached to the 2026 expo – “Promoting Sustainable Economic Development through Climate Smart Agriculture, Agribusiness, MSMEs, Cooperatives, Investments and Trade Initiatives in Kitui County” – signals an ambition considerably broader than a typical agricultural show. Climate-smart agriculture in particular is a deliberate nod to the drought and rainfall variability that shapes so much of Kitui’s farming economy; an event explicitly built around that theme is, at least in intent, trying to connect the county’s climate reality directly to the investment case it’s making to outside capital.

Organisers expect farmers, cooperatives, MSMEs, investors, traders, academic institutions, government agencies, and development partners to attend, which is a wide enough net that KASTIE’s actual success will likely be measured less by attendance figures and more by whether it produces concrete outcomes afterward – investment commitments, trade partnerships, or cooperative agreements that outlast the three days of the event itself. That’s the same standard national-level events like the Kenya International Investment Conference have been measured against, and it’s a considerably higher bar than simply hosting a well-attended show.

The timing is also notable: KASTIE 2026 lands the same year Kitui is separately developing the Kitui County Aggregation and Industrial Park, a 1,500-acre, KES 500 million joint county-national investment on the same broad theme of converting the county’s agricultural and mineral resources into higher-value, processed output rather than raw material leaving the county unprocessed. An event built around showcasing investment opportunities across Kitui’s six Economic and Investment Zones is a natural venue for pitching exactly that kind of large infrastructure project to the private investors whose capital it will ultimately need to attract, making the two initiatives more connected in practice than their separate funding streams and separate announcements might suggest.

Want to read more about this? Sacco Review's original report.