Displaced people bring skills, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit to host communities everywhere, including in Africa. Unfortunately, refugee crises are not temporary. Most refugees do not expect to be displaced for long, but in reality displacement lasts more than a decade. As a result, it is essential to address longer-term development needs to complement short-term humanitarian assistance.
A new World Bank publication, Insect and Hydroponic Farming in Africa: The New Circular Food Economy, outlines the benefits of expanding frontier agricultural technologies within a circular food economy in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings in Africa. In particular, it shows how insect farming can create jobs, diversify livelihoods, and improve access to nutrition.
Each year the number of new entrants and markets for insects around the world increases. About 2 billion people globally consume insects, including in Africa. Insects are more environmentally sustainable than other animal proteins and more nutritious than soybean protein. They provide nutritious human food and animal feed, including protein, zinc, iron, and calcium; and organic fertilizers. But currently, insects are mainly collected in the wild.
Farming insects can provide a healthy and all-year protein supply of nutritious food for humans, fish, and livestock in both conventional and non-conventional food production locations such as in arid areas, cities and refugee settings, while at the same time conserving biodiversity and other essential natural resources. We can feed insects with organic waste, such as household, agriculture, or brewery waste while reducing GHG emissions and creating climate-resilient livelihoods and increase food security. Refugee settlements has a large amount of good organic waste. Then, the waste from insects can be fed back into the food system as organic fertilizer. This innovative approach can strengthen the African food system, and fits a circular economy that can complement conventional farming.
Operations can be established at low cost, opening up opportunities for climate-resilient jobs, including for women, youth, and refugees who often live in locations with limited resources. In 13 African countries, there are already 850 insect farms that produce insects for food, feed, and fertilizers. Imagine collecting 30% of agriculture waste of the top five crops in the top 10 African agriculture economies and feeding it to Black Soldier Flies. This would result in:
- replacing 60 million tons of traditional fish and soy-based-animal feed
- creating 15 million direct and indirect jobs; incomes, and livelihoods, along the value chain, and
- reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking 18 million cars off the road annually
Other benefits include:
- Improved sustainability of local food systems and natural resources because of little water requirements and no arable land is needed
- Improved soil health through application of organic fertilizers consisting of the insect manure (frass) produced during the insect farming proces
- Improved peacebuilding and resilience to fragility, conflict, and violence through the creation of more stable and sustainable food system that provide economic opportunities and require fewer natural resources
Displaced populations have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to work. Before migrating, many often worked in agriculture and food sectors. People who used to farm want to apply their skills but often lack local access to arable land, knowledge, and resources. New technologies such as insect farming does not require arable land or limited water resources. Providing access to this technology is where the development community can make a difference. Beyond the obvious economic and nutritional benefits, this can also have important social and psychological benefits for displaced individuals.
Developing insect farming practices provides displaced people with practical skills that can enable and sustain livelihoods and be an asset where they are and once they return home. The World Bank and UNHCR are currently starting pilot projects of insect farming for food and feed in Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan and Zimbabwe, with plans to expand in 2023. This will contribute to alleviating the world’s food and nutrition security crisis.
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Thanks for sharing information related to insect farming.The workshop where I participated was an eye opener and it was an exciting training session as the facilitator was used practical work to reflect on the classroom work. We really appreciated all topics that were covered and going forward we need to explore ways of making insect manure and research on ingredients that could be added to make bio fertilizer so that fertilizer from insects with some combination of key elements so that crops uptake can be enhanced. We also appreciate the learning visit we had to Tongogara Refugee Camp and the good work World Vision Zimbabwe with support UNCHR Zimbabwe are implementing. It was pleasing to learn how World Vision Zimbabwe are engaging Youths in programming, Insect farming project and Hydroponics, A 25 hactare gravity feed irrigation scheme utilizing surface water diverted from Save river where the Refugees and Host communities are involved in irrigation farming.Fish farming is done.
Dorte and Line
Thanks for your article. Dorte, you have visited our Insect farming set up at Kanyazulu Farm in Mchinji, the western district of Malawi.
We take the issues raised seriously and believe this can change lives. We have expanded our Insect Farming beyond Kanyazulu Farm in Mchinji to Blantyre. We have showcased our set up @ the ongoing International Trade Fair Malawi 2023. We are giving the public brief overviews of Black Soldier Fly Farming. The response from Malawians has been overwhelming. There is need to set up several models of Insect farming where people can train for a week or two.
There are challenges in expanding this at individual level. Governments and development partners ought to work hand in hand to support self starters and publicise insect farming beyond paperwork and policy handbooks.
I and my colleagues at Kanyazulu Farm look up to World Bank and Malawi government to do the needful to scale up Black Soldier Fly Farming.