Business of breeding black soldier flies.

On the outskirts of Ruiru Town in Kiambu County, there is an estate that hosts beautiful bungalows and maisonettes standing in compounds surrounded with neat hedges or high walls.

It is a serene environment, which I dare say, any person who dreams big would wish to live

Seeds of Gold team has visited the estate in search of farmer Wanjira Kerago. She is emptying kitchen waste into a pen when we arrive at her beautiful home.

A short distance from her house, standing near the fence, is a structure made of timber, iron sheet on the roof and polythene sheet on the walls.

“This is my farm,” says Wanjira. “It is where I have invested all my energies and my dreams.”

Wanjira farms the black soldier fly, which research shows are a good source of protein to animals and birds.
The fly looks like a wasp. At the larvae stage, they are tiny worms.

Her one by one foot structure hosts swarms of insects placed in special plastic containers which hold the flies until they lay eggs. Other than the rearing structure, she has another which she calls the love cage where they mate and lay eggs. Bins or buckets can also be used for housing but they should have an inlet and an outlet.

“The larvae hatch from the eggs in about 100 days where they feed on the waste for another 14 to 20 days before they turn into a pupae,” she says.

Wanjira conceptualised the idea in 2015 and put up the structures at the end of 2016 after an agribusiness training at the International Centre for Insects and Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) in Nairobi.

“I am very passionate about agriculture but the inspiration to rear insects was drawn from the struggles I saw my mum undergo on her pig farm. The feeds were either too expensive or counterfeit.”

To start, she made the structure and trapped the insects from Icipe as she ploughed Sh40,000 into the venture.

“Farmers who intend to rear the insects are advised to use smelly traps to catch them. While at Icipe, we used rabbit droppings and urine. But one can also use rotten food, coffee husks or anything with a pungent smell. Once trapped in a basin for instance, they should be put away from birds,” she offers.

Feeds are not a problem for the savvy farmer, who is currently multiplying the insects.

HAVE NO ODOUR

“We all generate a lot of waste every day in our kitchens but for me, I do not dump it. I use it to feed my insects.”

The flies feed on any food remains from kitchen, she says. “They like fruits waste compared to food remains such as potato peelings. They like them moist and fresh. I collect the kitchen waste for three days and put in their house.”

A single black soldier fly hatches between 300 and 600 eggs at once, according to Wanjira, noting that they multiply faster.

When the fly is ready to lay eggs, she covers the structure with a carton so that she can lay eggs in dark areas. The eggs are usually a white and brown in colour.

She then incubates them for about 10 days, depending on the environmental temperatures, before she transfers them to another section they can start feeding.

“Incubation refers to placing the eggs in a conducive environment to hatch. For me I use dry cartons to create the environment.”

The metamorphosis process starts from the eggs that turn into larvae after three to four weeks as they feed. Later, they turn into pre-pupae where they stop feeding and act dead as they progress to pupae.

The pupae turns into a fly after two weeks before it can start laying eggs once again to continue with the cycle.

“The insects like adequate moisture and temperatures should range between 28 and 300C,” she offers.

Wanjira says the good thing about the insects is that they self-harvest, as they crawl out of the containers between the pre-pupae and the pupae stage.

“They crawl from the containers into a bucket where they are left to turn into inactive pupae, which is then dried and crushed into powder that is fed to the animals,” she explains, adding that farmers should mix the powder with other animal feeds ingredients.

Free-range chickens normally eat the larvae direct from the ground or compost pits, which makes it easy for farmers to feed the larvae directly to their poultry.

“The flies have no odour at all, therefore, feeding animals and birds the insects does not affect the taste of meat, milk or eggs.”

Using the black soldier larvae as food for poultry, cattle and fish will help farmers sustain their animals and grow variety of vegetables on the farm as the larvae can also be used for bio-conversion of environmental wastes that can be used as manure.

REDUCE COST OF ANIMAL FEEDS

The insects are dried under the sun or inside an oven. Poultry and fish farmers will cut the costs by up to 50 per cent through the technology.

Dr Tanga Mbi, a researcher with Icipe, says it is of importance that farmers adopt the new technology to reduce cost of animal feeds and increase their productivity.

“The insects are normally found at compound heaps making it easy to harvest them for use as foods for animals. But before feeding to the animals, they should be sterilised by burning them in an oven, exposing them to direct sunlight or freezing. That helps in killing a percentage of the germs.”

A gram of eggs can produce approximately 2.4kg of larvae with 42 per cent protein, 35 per cent fat and other minerals that include calcium, amino acids and vitamins.

Wanjira, who is currently bulking the insects, but she also feeds them to her mothers’ pigs, says her plan is to use them to process animal feeds for sale.

However, currently, she sells small-scale a kilo of dried larvae at between Sh35 and Sh40.

“My long-term goal is be able to formulate my own feeds,” she says. “This is a scale that needs huge production of black soldier flies and it is what I am working on.”

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At a glance

Turning insects into livestock feeds

Waste is put in a special plastic container that has black soldier flies that lay eggs.

The larvae hatch from the eggs in about 100 hours.

They then feed on the waste for 14 to 20 days before they later turn into pupae.

A single fly hatches between 300 and 600 eggs at once. A gram of the eggs produces 2.4kg of larvae with 42 per cent protein, 35 per cent fat and other minerals that include calcium, vitamins and amino acids.

It is this larvae that is fed to poultry for faster growth and to increase production.

The protein from insects is natural and has no chemicals. It has no side effects. It is also easily available and can be produced in large quantities and cheaply.

Using the larvae feeds will enable farmers to keep poultry, fish and grow a variety of vegetables.

In the US and South Africa, farmers rear the insects in large quantities to develop fish feeds with high protein content.