Maya Zaken and Jason Fine believe food waste, and flies, can help improve food security.

Beneath piles of food scraps, agricultural by-products and organic waste, an army of black soldier fly (BSF) larvae are hard at work. As the larvae eat, they grow from a tiny speck into a plump, protein-rich insect. They’re voracious eaters and are capable of consuming twice their body weight, daily. BSF larvae can grow 15 000 times their size in as little as two weeks. Once they’ve reached the optimum size, the larvae are harvested and processed into nutrient-dense animal feed. Welcome to the world of BSF farming, a more efficient and sustainable alternative to conventional feed crops and composting.

According to a study by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), approximately 83% of all grown crops are used to feed animals. In South Africa, maize and soybeans are farmed to feed livestock. The problem is that they require millions of hectares of land and are water-intensive crops, and come at a high environmental cost. Searching for a better food system, Maya Zaken stumbled upon BSF farming. After studying agriculture, she was looking for something that merged her two passions: social impact through food security, and sustainability.