We’re thrilled to share that the Savory Institute, in collaboration with our Kenya Hub, the Mara Training Centre (MTC), has been awarded the 2025 Grand Prize in the Seeding the Future Global Food System Challenge by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). The $250,000 award will support the implementation and scaling of a transformative land regeneration initiative across the Maasai Mara region of Kenya.
This project builds on nearly a decade of grassroots work by MTC and Maasai herders who have embraced Holistic Planned Grazing to restore productivity to degraded rangelands. The prize will help scale these efforts to 100,000+ hectares of communally managed land across a network of conservancies, including Enonkishu, Lemek, Ol Chorro, Mara North, and others.
At its heart, the project is about regenerating land and livelihoods—but it’s also about food. For generations, the Maasai relied on nutrient-rich diets centered around milk, meat, and blood. These traditional food systems have been disrupted by decades of restrictive policies and ecological degradation. By restoring land health and improving livestock productivity, this project will support a return to nutritionally and culturally significant foods, while also strengthening food and water security for over 8,000 people.
A core feature of this initiative is its focus on livestock–wildlife coexistence. The Maasai Mara is a globally renowned ecosystem and critical wildlife corridor for migratory species like wildebeest, zebra, elephant, and predators such as lions, hyenas, and others. This project will help herders implement regenerative grazing plans that mimic natural herd movement, improve forage biodiversity, and rebuild the ecological function of shared landscapes—benefiting both domestic and wild herbivores while creating herder income streams through ecotourism. As demonstrated in the Enonkishu Conservancy (Tyrrell et al., 2024), this model not only enhances rangeland health but also supports thriving wildlife populations and community conservation enterprises. Coexistence becomes a win-win: ecological integrity alongside pastoral resilience.
Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) monitoring will be expanded across new conservancies, creating a robust baseline to measure progress. The project is expected to sequester 180,000 tons of CO₂ over its first three years—contributing not only to climate mitigation, but also opening the door for ecosystem services markets and regenerative supply chains through Land to Market and the Maasai-led One Mara Carbon initiative.
We are deeply grateful to IFT’s Seeding the Future Foundation for this catalytic support, and to the countless herders, field trainers, and community leaders who have made this vision possible.
The future is regenerative—let’s keep going.
READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE: https://www.ift.org/press/press-releases/2025/july/9/growth-grant-and-grand-prize-winners
