<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/11/maggots-to-the-rescue-food-waste-wild-fish>
"A group of young Kenyans are working on an unusual solution to the problems of
food waste and fish feed produced unsustainably from wild-caught fish stocks:
maggots.
The larvae of the black soldier fly are now devouring unwanted food in projects
around the world. Their excrement, known as frass, can be used as a fertiliser
for land-based crops, and their protein-rich bodies, harvested before they turn
into flies, can be fed to livestock.
In Kenya, the environmentalists behind Project Mila, which in Swahili means
tradition, are employing the larvae to clean up food waste, as well as nurture
mangroves and feed fish in coastal farms.
Project Mila’s team of volunteers collect organic waste from households,
markets and restaurants in the south-eastern coastal city of Mombasa, and feed
it to voracious larvae, which produce frass while helping to clean up the city.
Nusra Abed, co-founder of Project Mila and a community health promoter, says
she was “perturbed by the number of sanitation-related infections within the
community due to poor waste management, and wanted to be part of the solution”.
According to a report by the UN Environment Programme, Kenya has some of the
highest levels of household food waste in the world, producing 40-100kg per
person annually.
Apart from alleviating the problem of food waste, the frass fertiliser has also
been helping small-scale farmers in the Mombasa area increase their crop growth
and diversity. It can enable farmers to diversify away from planting coconuts –
a commonly grown crop which is slow to mature – into fast-growing produce
including onions, tomatoes and other fruits. This offers them the opportunity
to earn extra income through farming that’s sustainable and organic, and
selling their surplus harvest in markets, says Roselyne Mwachia, a marine and
fisheries researcher working with Project Mila.
The use of frass in farming has also made the activity less harmful for the
environment and improved the catch of nearby fishers, say the team. In areas
like Mariakani and Mazeras, 24 miles west of Mombasa, upstream smallholder
farmers were using chemical-based fertilisers before the switch to frass, which
polluted the marine ecosystem when washed into the water after storms, says
Mwachia. “This affected … marine species, as well as caused bleaching of coral
reefs and death of mangroves, seagrass and seaweeds.”
“Coral reefs are fertile breeding grounds for marine species, and when
bleaching happens, it means breeding will be impacted and marine stocks will
reduce,” she adds. But with farmers shifting to frass, Mwachia says that
“fishers around areas where we have worked are reporting reduced coral
bleaching and increased fishing fortunes due to reduced pollution”."
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-mexico-city-water-crisis-solutions/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
