A social enterprise for Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs)

Your Livestock, Building Your Wealth — Drought-Proofed

ASALvest exists to economically empower pastoralists and small livestock traders — the people the market has locked out through lack of information and brokers who set the price. We drought-proof your herd by moving it into a managed, climate-ready ecosystem, value-add every animal to full market worth, and sell to strong buyers — with the gains going to the livestock owners and small scale traders. ASALvest does all the work; members keep ownership, watch everything on their phone, and build lasting wealth without abandoning the pastoralist way of life.

Become a Member → Partner With Us
The Challenge

The Problem With the Current System

For generations, pastoralism has been a way of building wealth. Today, more frequent droughts are wiping out livestock herds faster than families can rebuild them — and the market system fails even the animals that survive.

~2.6M
Livestock lost in Kenya's 2020–2023 drought
2M+
Livestock lost in Garissa County alone in the 2022 drought
60%+
Of northern households on food aid for 10+ years
KSh 216B
Estimated value of national drought livestock losses

New research from Kenya's ASALs, covering 1,053 pastoralist households including Garissa County, shows exactly where the system breaks:

Herds cut in half

95% of households were hit by the 2021–23 drought — six failed rainy seasons in a row. Average holdings collapsed from 48.5 to 24.7 Tropical Livestock Units: half a family's wealth, gone in one crisis.

Brokers set the price

80–87% of sheep, goats, bulls and heifers are sold through itinerant traders — middlemen who squeeze margins hardest during distress. The nearest livestock market is an average of 31 km away.

Information travels by word of mouth

Radio and formal alerts have almost no influence on selling decisions. Up to 74% of market intelligence flows through neighbours and family — leaving producers exposed to information asymmetry and price gouging.

No collective power

Only 3.1% of pastoralists belong to a marketing group or cooperative, and just 5.7% have a formal sales contract — so verbal deals get broken, and sellers bargain alone.

Source: Ndiritu & Gichuki (2025), Pastoralism 15:14333 — survey of 1,053 pastoralist households in five ASAL counties, including Garissa.

The Evidence

Why Mobile Pastoralism Is Becoming Harder to Sustain

For generations, moving herds to follow grass and water made pastoralism one of the most resilient ways to live in the drylands. That worked because droughts were occasional — rare enough for families to rebuild between them. As shocks now arrive closer together, that recovery window is closing, and herding alone is becoming a fragile source of income. The stakes reach far beyond individual families: pastoralism supplies over 60% of Kenya's meat, contributes an estimated 42% of agricultural GDP and 12% of national GDP, and holds livestock assets worth over USD 1 billion — yet the marketing system carrying all of that value remains informal, fragmented and starved of investment.

Droughts are striking more often

Climate projections for the region point to a sustained rise in both the frequency and intensity of drought, leaving less and less time to recover between events.

Source: IGAD — ICPALD

Herds no longer have time to rebuild

Rebuilding a herd after a major drought can take years. After recent back-to-back failed seasons, many herds across the eastern Horn never returned to their former size before the next shock arrived.

Source: World Bank & FEWS NET

A vast livelihood is exposed

Pastoralism uses close to half of Africa's land and supports hundreds of millions of people — a system mobility once made resilient, but that recurring drought is steadily eroding.

Source: FAO

Small traders are locked out too

Livestock traders work without reliable price information, across long distances, in markets where verbal agreements are routinely broken. The terminal markets that pay the best prices stay out of reach — so traders, like herders, sell below true worth.

Source: Ndiritu & Gichuki (2025)

The problem isn't the livestock — it's a system that leaves families exposed, traders guessing, and a national industry selling below its worth. ASALvest is built to change that.

The Model

We Turn Livestock Into Investment Capital

ASALvest pools members' animals and fattens them on a modern, climate-ready feedlot. Over 90-day rounds, thin animals are brought up to weight, then sold to strong buyers across the region and the Gulf — and the profit is shared back with the families who own the animals. Feedlots exist everywhere. What's different here is who captures the value: the pastoralist and the small trader — not the broker, not the middleman.

90day fattening rounds Sharia-compliant insurance Mobile payments & savings Works offline by USSD Builds credit banks ignore
ASALvest livestock mark
01

Climate-Smart Fodder

Year-round irrigated, drought-resistant grasses keep animals fed even when rains fail.

02

Eco-Feedlot Fattening

Balanced diets bring Boran cattle, Galla goats and camels to market weight in 90 days.

03

Climate-Hedged Timing

Drought early-warning data lets us buy animals before a shock, turning herds into cash, not losses.

04

Cooperative Partnership

Members keep full ownership of their animals and share in the profit — wealth stays in the drylands.

05

Market Access for the Locked-Out

Real price information and direct access to strong buyers — for herders and small traders whom brokers and information gaps have always kept out of the market’s gains.

Our Direction

Mission & Vision

Our Mission

To economically empower pastoralists and small livestock traders — drought-proofing the herds they own, turning recurring losses into lasting income and wealth through value addition and access to better markets, and giving funding partners a sustainable alternative to repeat relief.

Our Vision

An East and Horn of Africa where pastoralism grows from a way to survive into a way to prosper, with herding families owning climate-ready livestock enterprises.

The Process

How It Works

1

Join

Become a member through a partner cooperative.

2

Grow Value

90-day climate-smart feedlot fattening.

3

Better Markets

Access stronger buyers.

4

Share Profit

Profit shared fairly between members and ASALvest.

MemberASALvest
Becoming a Member

How Members Join — Through Partner Cooperatives

ASALvest partners with established livestock cooperative organizations. Pastoralists and livestock traders join through a partner cooperative, and we aggregate animals from cooperative members into our commercial feedlot ecosystem. ASALvest handles the fattening, value addition, marketing and selling — while every livestock-owning member follows the whole process transparently through our technology: a mobile dashboard and WhatsApp updates showing their animal's weight gain, costs and expected payout. You build wealth without the worry: the work is ours, the animals and the gains are yours.

You join through a partner cooperative

Pastoralists and livestock traders become members through an established livestock cooperative that ASALvest partners with.

We fatten, market and sell

We aggregate members' animals into our commercial feedlot ecosystem and handle the fattening, value addition, marketing and selling. ASALvest does all the work — from feed to final sale.

You see everything

A mobile dashboard and WhatsApp updates show your animal's weight gain, costs and expected payout — the whole process, transparently.

Your animals are insured

Animal-loss risk is covered through Sharia-compliant livestock insurance, so a bad season doesn't wipe a family out.

No herd? Donors can help

Donors can provide interest-free seed money to enrol pastoralists who can't yet self-fund — or who lost their herds entirely — giving them a livelihood to build on.

Technology You Can Trust

Your Animals, Your Wealth — Visible

Transparency isn't a promise at ASALvest — it's a screen. Every member watches their animals gain weight and value in real time, milestone by milestone, from entry to the M-Pesa payout. The numbers you see are the same unedited numbers we manage by.

☏

Member web app

A simple My Herd dashboard: live weights, daily gain, projected value and every milestone of the cycle.

#

USSD & SMS — any phone

No smartphone? No internet? Dial a short code on any handset and get your animal's weight and projected payout by text.

✓

WhatsApp updates

Weekly updates and photos of your animals, sent straight from the feedlot scale to your phone.

ASALvest member dashboard on a phone — live weight, daily gain and projected value, with the full cycle timeline: registration and ear-tagging, insurance, vaccination, weigh-ins and final sale with payout to M-Pesa
Our Members

Who We Serve

Livestock Pastoralists
Women & Youth
Livestock Traders
Get Involved

Two Ways In, One Shared Goal

Whether you herd or you fund, you build the same future — a stronger, drought-ready livestock economy owned by the community.

For Pastoralists

Join a cooperative.

Stop selling in panic at rock-bottom prices to brokers who set the price. Put your animals to work, keep your ownership, and let ASALvest do the work while you earn.

  • Keep ownership of your herd — invest it, don't lose it
  • Protect your animals with Sharia-compliant insurance
  • Build savings, a credit record and a financial identity
  • Get paid on your phone, even offline
  • Move toward income from more than one source
Join Through a Partner Cooperative →

Lead a livestock cooperative? Partner with us to bring this to your members.

For Development Funders

Partner with us.

Fund a lasting solution instead of paying the same relief bill again and again.

  • Start-up funding that changes the system, not just the year
  • Drive a system-wide shift that reaches families left behind by relief
  • Funders provide catalytic seed capital — their principal returns after each cycle and is reused, so one contribution funds many beneficiaries
  • Full transparency through the member app
  • Advances NDMA's drought-graduation goals and the feedlots, sale-yards and livestock insurance county plans call for but can't fund
Partner With Us →
The Difference

Ownership, Not Aid

Traditional AidProvides temporary relief.
Conventional LendingCreates debt.
The ASALvest WayASALvestBuilds ownership and wealth.
Aligned With National and County Priorities

Building Resilient Livestock Economies Together

Using business income and start-up funding, ASALvest delivers the drought-resilience and livestock goals national and county governments have already promised but can't fully fund.

Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock

State Department for Livestock Development

ASALvest's feedlot, aggregation and market-access model directly advances the Ministry's agenda to commercialize the livestock sector and turn pastoral herds into a formal, export-ready economy.

NDMA

National Drought Management Authority

Puts NDMA's own promise to help families "graduate" off aid into action, protects the livestock value it's meant to safeguard, and feeds live herd and weather data into early-warning systems.

ASAL Counties

ASAL County Governments

Delivers the feedlots, sale-yards, livestock insurance and cooperatives county plans call for — but often can't fund — at little cost to the county budget.

KALRO

Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization

Our feedlot and fodder model draws on KALRO’s research and technical guidance, grounding it in evidence.

National & Global

Vision 2030 & the SDGs

Supports Kenya's Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda and global goals on poverty, hunger, climate action and stronger dryland livelihoods.

“
When my animals were dying, I sold them for almost nothing. With ASALvest, they would have been working for me instead.
Partner cooperative member
Who We Are

A Founder-Led Social Enterprise, Built With the Community

ASALvest was founded by livestock traders who lived the problem firsthand. For years, they watched value drain out of their livestock, losing weight and worth on the long journey to market, disease taking its toll, brokers setting the price, and drought forcing them to sell thin animals for a fraction of their potential. They built ASALvest to close that gap: a social enterprise that fattens livestock to full market value and returns that value to the people who own the animals.

Coming Soon
Founder / CEO
Vision & community leadership
Coming Soon
Livestock & Operations
Feedlot & value chain
Coming Soon
Technology Lead
Platform & data
Coming Soon
Strategic Partnerships Manager
Livestock & Cooperatives
Advisory Committee

Guided by the Sector Experts

ASALvest is guided by an advisory committee that brings deep, sector-specific experience to keep ASALvest credible, accountable, and grounded in research and an evidence-based approach.

1

A veteran livestock researcher grounding the model in science on feedlots, animal health and dryland production.

To be announced
2

Deep field experience in arid-lands development and community livelihood programmes.

To be announced
3

Finance and investment expertise, including religiously-compliant (Islamic) finance.

To be announced
4

Policy expertise spanning local county systems and national frameworks.

To be announced