Making animal feed: How farmers are combating again towards locust invasion

A swarm of desert locust in Meru, on February 9, 2021. PHOTO | AFP

Kenya is battling a few of the worst locust plagues in many years, however start-up The Bug Image hopes to rework the pests into earnings and produce “hope to the hopeless” whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by the bugs.

Uncommon climate patterns exacerbated by local weather change have created excellent circumstances for surging locust numbers, which have destroyed crops and grazing grounds throughout East Africa and the Horn.

Scientists say hotter seas are creating extra rain, waking dormant eggs, and cyclones that disperse the swarms are getting stronger and extra frequent.

The Bug Image is working with communities across the space of Laikipia, Isiolo and Samburu in central Kenya to reap the bugs and mill them, turning them into protein-rich animal feed and natural fertiliser for farms.

“We are attempting to create hope in a hopeless state of affairs, and assist these communities alter their perspective to see these bugs as a seasonal crop that may be harvested and offered for cash,” stated Laura Stanford, founding father of The Bug Image.

In central Kenya’s Laikipia, clouds of locusts are devouring crops and different vegetation. The Bug Image is concentrating on swarms of 5 hectares or much less in inhabited areas not appropriate for spraying.

Swarms can journey as much as 150km (93 miles) a day and may include between 40-80 million locusts per sq. kilometre.

“They destroy all of the crops after they get into the farms. Generally they’re so many, you can not inform them aside, that are crops and that are locusts,” stated farmer Joseph Mejia.

The Bug Image pays Mejia and his neighbours Sh50 ($0.4566) per kilogramme of the bugs. Between February 1-18, the venture oversaw the harvest of 1.3 tonnes of locusts, in response to Stanford, who stated she was impressed by a venture in Pakistan, overseen by the state-run Pakistan Agricultural Analysis Council.

The locusts are collected at evening by torchlight when they’re resting on shrubs and timber.

“The group … are accumulating locusts, as soon as they (are collected) they’re weighed and paid,” stated Albert Lemasulani, a subject coordinator with the start-up.

The bugs are crushed and dried, then milled and processed into powder, which is utilized in animal feed or an natural fertiliser.