KASESE – Markets, households, hotels, farms and agro-processors across Kasese District generate large volumes of organic waste every day, most of it dumped, burned or left to rot in open spaces. A growing number of local enterprises are betting that this waste is worth more than it looks.
At Ugavoil, an agribusiness in Kasese, organic waste collected from markets, households and processing facilities is fed to Black Soldier Fly larvae, which convert it into two marketable products: protein-rich larvae used in poultry and fish feed, and frass, a nutrient-rich residue processed into organic fertilizer. Ugavoil works with market vendors on waste segregation and trains farmers to use the resulting feed and fertilizer, an approach the company credits with building community buy-in for what is still, for many, an unfamiliar technology.
A second Kasese enterprise, Rwenzori Agricultural Quality Control Company Limited, runs a similar model, collecting biowaste from Kasese Municipality and the surrounding area and processing it through Black Soldier Fly larvae into livestock feed ingredients and organic fertilizer. The company also promotes waste segregation and encourages environmentally friendly farming practices among local growers.
The insect at the center of both operations, Hermetia illucens, is not a pest. Unlike houseflies, adult Black Soldier Flies do not spread disease or feed on human food. Their larvae do the work, consuming food scraps, fruit peels, animal manure, market waste and crop residue, and converting it within days into feed and fertilizer rather than letting it decompose in landfills or open dumps, where organic waste is a significant source of methane emissions.
The economic case is straightforward. Feed costs are one of the largest expenses for poultry, fish and livestock farmers, and conventional protein sources such as fishmeal and soybean meal are often costly and resource-intensive to produce. Several poultry farmers in Kasese who have begun incorporating Black Soldier Fly larvae into feed formulations report lower feed costs and improved bird growth, while some fish farmers are exploring the same larvae as a fishmeal alternative. On the fertilizer side, frass has given coffee farming communities in Kasese, a crop that generates its own substantial processing waste, a way to improve soil fertility while cutting reliance on chemical fertilizer.
The model has also opened a low-cost entry point for women and youth groups, who make up a large share of new entrants into Black Soldier Fly farming in the district. The enterprise requires comparatively little land and capital, and several youth-led groups have started collecting organic waste from markets and households to produce larvae for sale to poultry and fish farmers, generating fertilizer as a secondary product. For women already engaged in composting, kitchen gardening or poultry keeping, the technology fits into existing routines rather than requiring an entirely new livelihood.
None of this is without friction. Larval performance and product quality depend on consistent waste segregation, and organic waste contaminated with plastic or chemicals undermines the system. New entrants often need training, equipment and breeding stock before they can run a viable operation, and as more producers enter the market, demand for larvae, feed products and fertilizer will need to keep pace with supply. Public unfamiliarity with insect farming remains a barrier too: many people associate larvae with unhygienic conditions, and sustained community sensitization, the kind Ugavoil and Rwenzori Agricultural Quality Control are already doing with vendors and farmers, will matter as much as the technology itself.
What Kasese’s experience suggests is that Black Soldier Fly farming works best as infrastructure rather than a one-off project: waste collection systems at markets, training pipelines for new entrants, and growing markets for the larvae and fertilizer it produces. Government agencies, local authorities and development partners each have a role in building that infrastructure, particularly in setting up the waste segregation systems that determine whether the model succeeds. Done well, it offers Kasese a way to treat organic waste as a resource rather than a problem, with direct income for the women, youth and smallholder farmers positioned to make use of it.
The writer, Hellen Masika, community mobilizer at the Centre for Citizen Conserving Environment
