Kenyan farmers make fertiliser and animal feed from locusts amid worst plague in ‘decades’

The climate crisis is creating conditions which have lead to a surge in Africa’s voracious pests, writes Harry Cockburn

A man tries to chase away a swarm of desert locusts away from a farm, near the town of Rumuruti, Kenya, February 2021 (Reuters)

Just months after facing a “biblical” plague of locusts, Kenya is now in the grip of one of the worst influxes of the insect for decades, threatening vital food supplies.

However amid the turmoil, one African company is trying to help communities find opportunities in the disaster and use the plague as a means of improving the fertility of the land.

The Bug Picture, a regenerative agriculture company, is working with communities in central Kenya to harvest the insects - which are a type of grasshopper - and mill them, turning them into protein-rich animal feed and organic fertiliser for farms.

Locusts usually live for between 3 and 6 months, but from one generation to the next there can be a 16-fold increase in locust numbers.

Last year, billions of the destructive insects descended upon the country from Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia - which were all badly impacted.

The International Rescue Committee warned that as a result 5 million people were at risk of hunger and famine.

Unusual weather patterns exacerbated by the worsening climate crisis have created ideal conditions for surging locust numbers, which have destroyed crops and grazing grounds across the East of the continent and the Horn of Africa.

Warming seas are generating greater rainfall, which can wake dormant eggs, while the cyclones that disperse the swarms are getting stronger and more frequent - supercharged by global heating.

But locusts are protein-rich, and the sheer weight of the biomass means once they are collected (which can be done while they are sleeping at night) and processed, they are an abundant and effective means of enriching the land, or can be used as animal feed.

“We are trying to create hope in a hopeless situation, and help these communities alter their perspective to see these insects as a seasonal crop that can be harvested and sold for money,” Laura Stanford, founder of The Bug Picture, told Reuters.

In central Kenya’s Laikipia, clouds of locusts are devouring crops and other vegetation. The Bug Picture is targeting swarms of 5 hectares or less in inhabited areas not suitable for spraying.

Swarms can travel up to 150 km (93 miles) a day and can contain between 40-80 million locusts per square kilometre.

“They destroy all the crops when they get into the farms. Sometimes they are so many, you cannot tell them apart, which are crops and which are locusts,” said farmer Joseph Mejia.

The Bug Picture pays Mr Mejia and his neighbours 50 Kenyan shillings (32p) per kilogram of the insects.

Between February 1-18, the project oversaw the harvest of 1.3 tons of locusts, according to Ms Stanford, who said she was inspired by a project in Pakistan, overseen by the state-run Pakistan Agricultural Research Council.

The locusts are collected at night by torchlight when they are resting on shrubs and trees.

“The community ... are collecting locusts, once they (are collected) they are weighed and paid,” said Albert Lemasulani, a field coordinator with the start-up.

The insects are crushed and dried, then milled and processed into powder, which is used in animal feed or an organic fertiliser.

The Bug Picture notes that by 2050 the population of East Africa is forecast to double.

“In this same period, the demand for meat will more than double in line with increased socioeconomic factors. We want to be part of the solution of food and feed for the future, using fewer natural resources without destroying our planet in the process.”

Additional reporting by Reuters.