For decades Masaka has been known as the land of Nsenene (edible grasshoppers). This is starting to change.
Many people in the central Uganda district are now minting money by rearing crickets. It is done throughout the year and the capital to start the business is low.
Crickets are small to medium-sized insects with mostly cylindrical, somewhat vertically flattened bodies. When crushed, their flour is used in livestock feed and other industrial applications.
The United Nations says that the use of insect protein, such as cricket flour, could be critical in feeding the growing population of the planet while being less damaging to the environment.
It has been six years since Josephine Nabbanja of Gayaza, Masaka City ventured into this cricket insect business and she is happy and wants to expand the business.
“I recently sold 24kg to Masaka MicroFinance and Development Cooperative Trust Limited (MAMIDECOT) each at Shs 25000,” she boasts. “The market is readily available.”
And this nsenene land changed to cricket land thanks to Masaka home boy Geoffrey Ssepuuya who has researched widely about the commercial viability of crickets.
He had grown up selling grasshoppers. He knew the opportunities, as well as the challenges in the trade because his PhD research at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium focused on the preservation of grasshoppers.
“I had initially wanted to research the grasshopper, my totem. I had sold them as a child to raise my school fees hence I was privy to the challenges of the grasshopper’s business; fast rotting. How if I become part of the solution,” he recalls.
But things changed for the Uganda Christian University research scientist.
And he turned his focus to crickets.
First, they weren’t easy to mass breed as the infant mortality was very high. Secondly, there was need to develop a proper feed.
To achieve his dream, he applied for and won a research grant under the Science Governing Council Initiative (SGCI) of the Uganda National Council for Science Technology (UNCST) in 2021. The grants are funded by the International Development Research Center of Canada
He was able to develop alternative cricket feeds from food waste. He collects food waste from schools, hospitals and other waste collection points. He sorts it, and processes it into a powder which is easy for the crickets to digest.
Nabbanja, the cricket farmer in Masaka, agrees with Ssepuuya.
“The crickets eat and clear all the formulated feed from Sepuuya,” she reveals.
And she has her formula. She feeds the crickets for two months on the formulated powder and another month on the maize feed.
“Farmers have their perception,” Ssepuuya responded, explaining why Nabbanja is alternating the feeds.
A former poultry farmer, Nabbanja ventured into crickets after attending a workshop in Masaka where Ssepuuya convinced them about the efficiency of the formulated powdered feeds.
The workshops was organized at Masaka Micro Finance and Development Cooperative Trust Limited, the same agency that buys Nabbanja’s dry crickets.
Ssepuuya argues that one kg of cricket requires 3kgs of his formulated feed.
Kayondo Mugagga, the program’s officer at MAMIDECOT says they are working with 33,000 cricket farmers in the greater Masaka city. There are bags of refrigerated crickets in the offices in the Nyendo area.
He agrees with Ssepuuya on the opportunities that accrue from rearing crickets rather than grasshoppers.
“While grasshoppers are more eaten, they are seasonal. “They also eat each other which makes it difficult to breed. Crickets can be bred continuously, Mugagga says.
Geoffery Sempiri, the coordinator Science Granting Councils Initiative at UNSCT, the funders of Ssepuuya’s research says the formulated cricket food from food waste is a goldmine waiting to be exploited.
“Crickets have higher protein levels compared to fish and animal protein like beef,” he reveals.
He predicts a future where cricket is a source of protein for both humans and animals, especially in Uganda’s new markets like the Democratic Republic of Congo where they are hugely eaten by humans.
This will lead to the creation of new cricket farming and feed production industries.
“In Uganda, they would be a good alternative to fish meal such as mukene used as animal feed for poultry and piggery. This is because crickets require less feed per kg of cricket meat than traditional animal source proteins such as chicken and piggery,” he argues.
“We only have to work on moving from lab scale production to commercial scale production.”
He also reveals environmental advantages, seeing a future of more investment in food waste processing after investors get knowledge that the waste, a huge menace in Kampala and other Ugandan cities can be processed into cricket animal feed and that crickets can be food for poultry and piggery.
Ssepuuya, who is satisfied with the economic viability of his formulated powdered feed, is building a pilot production plant that will be dedicated to converting food waste into feed.
He argues that this investment will reduce the waste that has been filling landfills leading to the high emission of methane, a more lethal greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide that causes climate change.
The story was first published by Sciencenowmag on July 17 2024.
