What’s bugging you? Farmers make animal feed from locust plague

Kenya is battling some of the worst locust plagues in decades, but startup The Bug Picture hopes to transform the pests into profits and bring "hope to the hopeless" whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by the insects.

A man tries to chase away a swarm of desert locusts from a farm, near the town of Rumuruti, Kenya, Feb. 1, 2021.

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

Scientists say warmer seas are creating more rain, waking dormant eggs, and cyclones that disperse the swarms are getting stronger and more frequent.

A man harvests desert locusts, near the town of Rumuruti.

The Bug Picture is working with communities around the area of Laikipia, Isiolo and Samburu in central Kenya to harvest the insects and mill them, turning them into protein-rich animal feed and organic fertilizer for farms.

Albert Lemasulani, a field coordinator who works for the startup The Bug Picture, watches workers being paid after they harvested desert locusts.

"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," said Laura Stanford, founder of The Bug Picture.

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.

A man tries to chase away a swarm of desert locusts in Naiperere.

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

"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.

Desert locusts caught during a harvest are stored inside a sack near the town of Rumuruti.

The Bug Picture pays Mejia and his neighbors 50 Kenyan shillings ($0.4566) per kilogram of the insects. Between Feb. 1-18, the project oversaw the harvest of 1.3 tons of locusts, according to Stanford, who said she was inspired by a project in Pakistan, overseen by the state-run Pakistan Agricultural Research Council.

People load a pick-up truck with sacks filled with harvested desert locusts.

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 startup.

Philip Ouma, a laboratory manager, tests the nutritional value of desert locusts at the laboratory Spectralab, Feb. 16, 2021.

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

Ouma holds a dish containing ground desert locusts at the laboratory Spectralab.

Dishes containing ground desert locusts are dried inside a furnace at the laboratory Spectralab in Nairobi.

Men use a net to harvest desert locusts, near the town of Rumuruti, Kenya.

A swarm of desert locusts engulfs a high voltage electricity transmission tower near the town of Rumuruti.

A man riding a motorcycle drives through a swarm of desert locusts.

Workers use a barrel to crush sacks filled with harvested desert locusts, at a farm near the town of Rumuruti.

Desert locusts fly past a dik-dik antelope near the town of Nanyuki.