In the back streets of Kenya\u2019s capital, Nairobi, where children play football on vacant dirt blocks beside apartment blocks, a concrete building stands behind a wobbly corrugated iron fence. It seems an unlikely place for an agricultural revolution.<\/p>\n
The half-built building is flanked by a 10m-long greenhouse and from it emerges Winnie Wambui. The 24-year-old is an engineering student, business owner and entrepreneur \u2013 and her crop is black soldier flies.<\/p>\n
Food waste collected from local markets is fed to the fly larvae, which can eat double their body weight in a single day. It\u2019s a low-cost waste management solution, with added benefits. Frass \u2013 matter including insect poo and exoskeletons \u2013 extruded from the larvae is sold as fertiliser and the larvae themselves become a high-protein meal for other farmed animals, including chickens and fish.<\/p>\n
Wambui partners with the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, which is partly financed by an annual $500,000 grant from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. She says this partnership has been key to her business\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough ICIPE I have received training and BSF [black soldier fly] starter kits, and ACIAR directly facilitated travel to Germany so I could learn more about BSF farming,\u201d she says. \u201cMy engineering background is now being directed to an agricultural business that creates economic and social impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also being touted as a green solution: according to the UN, food loss and food waste contribute up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Black soldier flies \u2013 Hermetia illucens \u2013 are being promoted as a low-cost waste management solution<\/a> in Australia. Though an introduced species, AgriFutures Australia says they are not considered a pest.<\/p>\n Luke Wheat is the founder and managing director of Arvela, a company that breeds black soldier fly larvae for the wider market. It has scaled up to sell the larvae \u2013 the industry tries to avoid calling them maggots \u2013 commercially, and Wheat is anticipating an \u201cexciting period of accelerated growth\u201d for the industry over the next five years.<\/p>\n The biosecurity risk is low, he says. \u201cThey\u2019re not a biting insect, they are not known to spread disease and they only appear [outside farms] seasonally and in low densities.\u201d<\/p>\n Wheat, who chairs the Insect Protein Association of Australia, believes the insect has a unique position in the waste management sphere as it does most of its feeding in the seven- to 10-day larval stage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe larvae, like a bear going into hibernation, want to pack on as much nutrient and fat stores as they can, which means waste digestion is exceptionally rapid compared to traditional composting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The target market for the dried larvae, Wheat say, is aquaculture, but live larvae can also be fed to poultry in some Australian jurisdictions. Dried larvae, marketed as BSF protein, has been approved for use in specialty dog food<\/a>, which advertises it as a \u201chypoallergenic novel protein\u201d. That company said its palatability testing showed \u201ccanine satisfaction\u201d with the insect protein was equivalent to other animal protein sources.<\/p>\n \u201cThe larvae can also be rendered down and the resultant oil has antimicrobials, which are good for gut-health, especially in piglets,\u201d Wheat says.<\/p>\n