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THE HERI BLACK SOLDIER FLY FARM

The HERI Black Soldier Fly (BSF) Farm is a practical, community-anchored model solution for the rapidly growing challenge of organic waste in developing coastal and urban settings

Turning Waste into Opportunity

Located in Diani, one of Kenya’s most active tourism and hospitality hubs, the farm functions as a live demonstration site, training hub, and community resource center for organic waste management and circular economy learning. While grounded in the realities of Diani, the model is intentionally designed to be replicable across hospitality towns, urban centers, and institutional settings.

Across rapidly growing towns, tourism hubs, and urban settlements, organic waste constitutes the largest share of solid waste generated. When unmanaged, it becomes a major environmental and public health risk—driving pollution, disease vectors, greenhouse gas emissions, and pressure on landfills.

While waste regulations and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) frameworks increasingly require responsible waste handling, practical and affordable organic waste treatment solutions remain limited for institutions, businesses, and communities. This gap constrains compliance, sustainability efforts, and local innovation.

Black Soldier Fly larvae safely and rapidly convert organic waste into valuable products. At the BSF Farm, sorted organic waste is fed to larvae, which consume and reduce waste volume while producing:

  1. Protein-rich larvae for animal and aquaculture feed
  2. Organic compost (frass) that improves soil health

This process treats waste at source, reduces environmental risk, and creates usable outputs within days, demonstrating a scalable, low-emission alternative to disposal.

Key Outputs

  1. Organic compost for agriculture and landscaping
  2. High-protein insect biomass for feed value chains
  3. Significant reduction in organic waste volumes
  4. Practical data for learning, research, and policy engagement

Waste → Treatment → Products → Skills → Health & Environmental Outcomes

The farm enables the community and partners to move from theory to practice using real systems. It serves as a community resource center that supports skills development, innovation, and collaboration.

It hosts:

  • Community and institutional trainings
  • Youth and women capacity-building programs
  • Practitioner demonstrations and pilots
  • Applied research and field studies
  • Sustainability learning visits

The BSF Farm supports applied research on organic waste management, circular economy models, environmental health, and community adoption. The site enables:

  1. Real-time data collection on waste conversion
  2. Testing and refinement of scalable models
  3. Evidence generation to inform policy and practice
  4. Integration of research into community learning

The BSF Farm hosts guided learning and eco-tours for tourists, students, professionals, policymakers, and development practitioners. Participants experience organic waste transformation firsthand and gain practical insights into circular economy models that improve environmental health and sustainability.

Tours are designed to shift participants from awareness to understanding, demonstrating how waste becomes a resource.

The BSF Farm is open to partnerships that advance sustainability goals, compliance, and innovation. Collaboration opportunities include:

  • CSR and ESG partnerships

  • Organic waste management pilots

  • Research and learning collaborations

  • Training and demonstration support

  • Sustainability reporting and impact contributions