Insect Farming in East Africa: Knowledge Exchange Event

During the event, which was kicked off by Mr. Bart Pauwels (Agricultural Counselor of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Nairobi), several presenters discussed priority topics for the advancement of the industry rearing industry in East-Africa. These included presentations on reducing fragmentation in the sector and combining forces through the strengthening of a Black Soldier Fly (BSF) Association by Laura Stanford of The Bug Picture and Laura Martinussen of Fair and Sustainable; and improving access to finance and overcoming the gap between supply and demand in a nascent industry as insect farming by Dominic Strano of IDH.

After the presentations the participants entered into side sessions based on the insect farming industry’s main challenges: access to funding, improved technical capacity / training, and improved collaboration. These priorities were a result of input from participants. Participants from the private sector, finance, civil society and knowledge institutes discussed solutions that ranged from collaborative efforts throughout the value chain to showcasing successes, and from certification schemes to benchmarking and learning from each other. All solutions discussed can be read in the Event Report that can be downloaded through this page.

The session was concluded with a panel discussion in which Mr. Bon Tjeenk Willink (Koudijs / De Heus), Mr. Michael Lwoyelo (Sanergy) and Mr. Jacques Steffens (Sapling 54) discussed the topics of market access and conditions for scaling. Highlighting the importance of and ways to de-risk investments, to stabilise volume and quality and to move from individual action to collaboration throughout the value chain or even the broader eco-system.

Over the coming months NFP, together with F&S and NGN, will explore opportunities to advance the proposed solutions during the event. The ambition is to, together with East African organisations, develop a joint roadmap that will translate the solutions discussed into actionable activities.