Digital Livestock Trade Ushering in a New Era for the KES 1.9trillion Livestock Industry
This sets LiveStockEx apart, as not just a digital interface—it’s the trust architecture behind it. Verified vets ensure the legitimacy, health, and identity of listed animals, secure mobile money transactions protect sellers and buyers, transporters undergo verification to ensure safe livestock movement and all transactions and animal details are stored digitally, improving farm and business management.
Introduction Meeting with Kiamaiko Buyers- 22 August 2025.
In today’s rapidly evolving economic landscape, data has consistently proven to be the currency of progress. Kenya’s livestock sector—valued at approximately KES 1.9 trillion and contributing 12% to the national GDP and 42% to agricultural GDP1 has long operated through informal markets and a fractured value-chain. This severely limits profitability and efficiency for millions of farmers, buyers, veterinary professionals, and transporters.
While traditionally underused in pastoral livestock systems, data now stands out as a lever to unlocking the full potential of Kenya’s livestock sector, yet it is nonexistent. Across many sectors, data–driven decision-making is transforming the world by shifting from instinct-based choices to fact-based actions, leading to more efficient operations and enabling companies to optimise performance, develop products based on user data, and mitigate risks in various fields.
Recognising this paradigm shift, LiveStockEx has engineered an innovative platform to digitize livestock trading, transforming the livestock industry- a major component of Kenya’s economy. LiveStockEx is Kenya’s first digital livestock trading platform, and has now officially launched in Kenya, expanding from its successful operations in the United Kingdom.
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Activation at Dagoretti Slaughter House- 7 Nov 2025
According to the Kenya Investment Authority, the livestock industry employs nearly 50 percent of the agricultural labour force and supports the livelihoods of over 5 million pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. Kenya’s livestock population is ranked 11th largest globally.
Despite its size, the sector is largely informal and faces challenges such as minimal transparency and low value-chain connectivity, harming the trading process and devaluing stakeholder livelihoods. For instance, 20–30% of value is lost for farmers, due to broker fees for navigating the fragmented market, long travel to various markets that cause animal injury and fatigue, unpredictable pricing, and a lack of finance for feedlots.
Buyers, on the other hand, wrestle with a short supply of animals that are often stolen and unverified and lack variety. Lastly, vets and paravents, even after years of training, battle poor income due to a lack of farmer engagement throughout the rearing and trading processes.
The fractured livestock marketplace and its inefficiencies cost these key stakeholders billions annually and weaken the value chain across national and export markets.
LiveStockEx digital platform, however, removes these inefficiencies and improves profitability for all the stakeholders. Farmers, buyers, veterinarians, and livestock transporters interact and transact together using mobile phones, tablets, and computers. Farmers sell directly to buyers, without the need for long-distance travel for auctions.
Auctions happen live on the LiveStockEx platform– with the press of a button, their animals are put up for bidding. Buyers purchase vet-verified animals and have consistent supply of variety of animals and vets and livestock transporters are inextricably linked to the digital trading process leading to sustainable incomes.
This sets LiveStockEx apart, as not just a digital interface—it’s the trust architecture behind it. Verified vets ensure the legitimacy, health, and identity of listed animals, secure mobile money transactions protect sellers and buyers, transporters undergo verification to ensure safe livestock movement and all transactions and animal details are stored digitally, improving farm and business management.
This level of transparency and traceability is unprecedented in Kenya’s livestock ecosystem.
“Despite farmers being great contributors to the livestock industry, they have long been exploited. They lose billions each year to unfair brokers and poor market access. Middlemen pocket the profit while farmers stay poor. We are now flipping the script by letting farmers digitally sell livestock directly to buyers, without leaving their farm,” says Lew Schulman, Chairman, LiveStockEx Kenya.
A buyer in Kiamaiko says he can now source animals from across counties he previously had no access to. “LiveStockEx shows us how easy it’s going to be to do business with other people and how it will open up the entire Kenyan market, even areas we could not reach,” he said, noting that he can now access vet-verified animals from farmers in regions he previously had no way of reaching.
In closing, as Kenya pushes for digital agriculture and rural development, LiveStockEx offers a model that will transform farmer livelihoods. “This is more than just tech. We’re re-imagining how livestock is valued, verified, and moved — profitably and sustainably,” – Murray Roos, LiveStockEx CEO, UK Headquarters, London.
Available on Google Play Store and Apple Store, users can download the app, create an account, and begin selling, transporting, or buying. The platform manages the transaction from listing, vet verification, payment, and transportation—ensuring simplicity and security at every step.
With a large livestock population, a growing digital economy, and a market ready for transparency, LiveStockEx arrives at a pivotal moment for Kenya. With adoption continuing at its current pace, the platform is expected to fundamentally reshape how animals are traded, valued, and moved across the country.
Steve UMIDHA is a Kenyan-born financial journalist with over 15 years of work experience in journalism and communication. He specialises in finance and economics reporting as well as on the causes, impacts, and solutions of global warming (Climate Change).
He's the Managing Editor & Founder of Financial Fortune Media. Steve has previously worked with the bird story agency, Mediamax Networks LTD, Standard Media Group, Business Journal Africa, CNBC Africa and Financial Post among other news outlets.
