From yuck to profits: Some Zimbabwe farmers turn to maggots to survive drought and thrive
It was an alarming, even sickening, suggestion: Farmers in Zimbabwe hit hard by drought should farm maggots to feed their animals and boost their household incomes
NYANGAMBE, Zimbabwe — At first, the suggestion to try farming maggots spooked Mari Choumumba and other farmers in Nyangambe, a region in southeastern Zimbabwe where drought wiped out the staple crop of corn.
After multiple cholera outbreaks in the southern African nation resulting from extreme weather and poor sanitation, flies were largely seen as something to exterminate, not breed.
“We were alarmed,” Choumumba said, recalling a community meeting where experts from the government and the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, broached the idea.
People had flocked to the gathering in hope of news about food aid. But many stepped back when told it was about training on farming maggots for animal feed and garden manure.
“People were like, ‘What? These are flies, flies bring cholera’,” Choumumba said.
A year later, the 54-year-old walks with a smile to a smelly cement pit covered by wire mesh where she feeds rotting waste to maggots — her new meal ticket.
After harvesting the insects about once a month, Choumumba turns them into protein-rich feed for her free-range chickens that she eats and sells.
Up to 80% of chicken production costs were gobbled up by feed for rural farmers before they took up maggot farming. Many couldn’t afford the $35 charged by stores for a 50-kilogram (about 110-pound) bag of poultry feed, said Francis Makura, a specialist with a USAID program aimed at broadening revenue streams for farmers affected by climate change.
But maggot farming reduces production costs by about 40%, he said.
The maggots are offspring of
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