World’s First Commercial Fly Farm Opens In SA

*From left: Dr Ian Banks, Karin Andse, Lee-Handra Johnson, Dr Cameron Richards, Dr Christo Wiese.

The world’s first commercial waste-to-protein fly farm is nearing completion in Cape Town and by ‘herd size’ will be the largest farming operation on the planet.  As part of its commitment to ongoing research and development in the emerging nutrient recycling industry, AgriProtein Group has launched an initial five-year Research & Development programme to drive its ongoing process improvement work as well as to spearhead research for the group globally.The team is headed by entomologist, Dr Cameron Richards, complimented by Dr Ian Banks, and  a team of four researchers and six support staff.

The team will work on a wide range of Research & Development initiatives, key amongst them being the mapping of the genome of the fly species starting with Hermetia illucens or black soldier fly. The team will also be researching mating and egg-laying stimuli amongst various production fly species.

This R&D initiative builds on commercialisation research supported by South Africa’s Technology Innovation Agency as well as six years of research and development into fly rearing technology in partnership with the University of Stellenbosch.

As AgriProtein rolls out factories to four continents over the coming 18 months, whilst working with research partners and institutions in Europe, Asia and the Americas  – the group views South Africa as its lead research and development hub.  Dr Christo Wiese  is one of Africa’s leading entrepreneurs.

AgriProtein is at the forefront of the emerging nutrient recycling industry. Mr. Jason Drew, co-founder of AgriProteinTechnologies had in July, 2013 told Vanguard that the housefly could save the world. AgriProtein uses flies reared on a very large scale to lay eggs that are hatched into larvae on organic waste material.

The larvae are then harvested and dried into Magmeal, a natural and sustainable feed for chicken and fish. AgriProtein are recent winners of the WWF Climate Solvers Challenge and UN IFP Innovation Award for Africa.

Vanguard