Farming Flies and Selling Mosquitoes – Repairing our Future

One of life’s privileges, I think, is being able to see the world differently from time to time. The process of trying on a different pair of glasses through which one views the world can be quite refreshing. And funny too. This is what I thought, listening to one of the many inspiring speakers at the recently concluded annual Tallberg Forum that took place in Sweden.This particular speaker, Jason Drew, stepped onto the stage and had the audience mesmerized for the full 10 minutes of his presentation. In a nutshell, Jason, together with his brother David Drew, breed flies under their company called Agriprotein, in what is an environmental effort to produce sustainable food growing methods. We live in a world with dwindling water and food resources, and a ballooning population that is making scientists and entrepreneurs alike visit new and sustainable ways in which we can feed an imminent global population of nine billion people.So back to the fly farmer. This story (I like to think) began one day as he observed huge amounts of waste dumped outside a chicken abattoir. Staring thoughtfully at pools of congealed chicken blood and waste, Jason had the idea that instead of dumping this waste, it could be treated and be used as protein to feed livestock. Currently, fishmeal – leftovers of fish – is what is used as animal feed on farms. However, we humans are fast depleting our seas of fish so the question was, what other alternative option was there? Enter the common house fly. Growing this pesky little bug has proved innovative and profitable. The production process starts with breeding flies in cages, each holding over 750,000 flies. A single female fly can lay between 750 to over 1,000 eggs per week, which will then hatch into larvae. The harvested larvae are then dried, milled into flake form and packed ready for consumption by livestock. While scientists around the world are busy inventing methods in which to kill the fly, Agriprotein is busy growing flies quicker than you can say fishmeal. I may add that this meal is known as ‘maggot meal’ or ‘magmeal’ in short. Not quite a savory business practice, but what are the odds of ever running out of flies? A natural and sustainable livestock feed process, if there ever was one. Interestingly, Agriprotein is looking into turning human waste into useful and sustainable products.But, before we could wrap our minds around the benefits of farming flies and how human feces could be used to grow chickens and vegetables, Jason started explaining the mosquitoes. Under another company called Oxitec based in London, genetically modified mosquitoes are created, where the male is sterile. In this case is the Aedes mosquito that transmits Dengue fever. These sterile male mosquites are introduced into populations high with the Aedes mosquito, and when they mate and have baby mosquitos – any female offspring will die right away. As we know, it is only female mosquitoes that are carriers of diseases. Oxitec is now looking at targeting areas dense with the Anopheles mosquito – responsible for malaria. Much better on our ecosystem and way better than using pesticides, don’t you think?What I really took from Jason, is how everything and everyone around us is interconnected. If we keep on missing this point, then the cause of the world’s problems may actually be its solutions.