Fly food to feed fish and sustain fish populations
Some friends have drawn my attention to Jason Drew, who has been in Australia recently.
Jason is based in South Africa’s Cape Town. He sets up ‘green businesses’ to sustain natural resources, such as fisheries.
One of his new businesses is fly farming, turning waste into larvae, and a protein-rich, natural animal feed.
To get his ideas Drew reads and travels. He believes that the world is running out of food. He says, “Every day, 25,000 people die from starvation, yet as many die of obesity-related conditions. Nearly 1-billion wake up hungry as a result of environmental damage we have caused.”
Drew’s new business, Agri-Protein, is a venture he runs with his brother, David Drew, outside Stellenbosch. They’re recycling waste nutrients by fly farming and selling a product called Magmeal. Agri-Protein’s website says:
“Aquaculture uses up to 2kg of marine caught fish to produce 1kg of farmed fish, of which we eat only 60%, the rest being waste nutrients. 25% of all marine catch is used in animal feed preparations; fish stocks globally are in rapid decline.
Drew says, “Chicken and fish eat flies. It’s their natural food. We’ve worked out a way to use the eggs of those flies. We hatch them into larvae fed on existing waste from slaughterhouses, dry the larvae, and make sustainable protein for animal feed, Magmeal, used in our industrial agricultural businesses.’
If viable, the fly larvae food can replace the fish meal that’s fed to fish and so make fish farming more sustainable. That’s a wonderful goal and a great idea; good luck, David,
M
Black soldier fly larvae could be grown as a chook and fish food. I have seen a home-made system at Michele Margolis’s place. I plan to make a fly farm as well to grow food for our backyard animals. We have chooks and just built an aquaponics system which would house small native fish and circulate water through two grow beds. Growing animal fodder seems to be the next step.