The global animal feed supply business holds great potential for the economy of developing countries, such as Africa. With the highest birth rate on civilized earth, Africa has the fastest growing population anywhere in the world! The continent’s population (currently at one billion) is predicted to rise to 2.3 billion in less than 40 years. With all these mouths to feed, agriculture (especially livestock farming) is more than likely to become a booming industry in Africa’s future.To avoid hunger, FAO estimates that Africa will have to produce up to 60 percent more food by 2050. Animal protein will make up a huge proportion of this food and meat production will need to more than double to meet up with Africa's demand. To satisfy the demand, livestock and poultry stocks are expected to increase by at least 40%. Now, this growing demand for meat and its products is driving up the demand for animal feeds used by livestock farmers to grow chickens, fish and pigs. But the problem is, nutritious animal feeds are very expensive. Farmers across Africa have experienced an increase in cost from 30 cents to 2 dollars per kilogram in just under a year. The reason for the rising costs is because; for decades, proteins in animal feed have majorly come from two main sources: Soybeans and Fishmeal, which are not only expensive to produce, but also, their production cycles have a strong negative impact to the environment. At MagoFarm, we use insects and organic wastes provide the international animal feed industry with a cheaper, eco-friendly and more nutritious source of protein that will help farmers around the world to make extra profits by reducing some of their feed costs,and to ensure global food security. At MagoFarm we breed Black-soldier fly larvae (also called maggots) commercially as an alternative protein source for livestock feeds. We basically do this in 2 steps; First, we breed Black soldier flies on our fly farms to mate, lay eggs and produce maggots. Second, we allow the maggots to feed on organic waste and grow to a size of about 220 mg before they are harvested. Within our facilities, we dehydrate, dry and powder the maggots. We then package the maggots in sacks of 25 and 50 KG, ready for distribution to our clients. We have spent several months conducting research on this technology, and developed a maggot breeding infrastructure and piloted it to produce 50 Kilograms of Refmeal, an animal feed product which contains 60% more nutritious protein than all other alternatives in the market, at a 45% less price. Unlike soybean and fishmeal, maggots are abundant and readily available. In fact, for every 1 tonne of maggots we produce, we contribute to re-cycling 3 tons of organic waste from the environment, which we use as a raw material.
Comments