Project /Studies View

Parent project Sustainable poultry, aquaculture and goat farming for economic and nutritional well being of rural communities in Morobe and Madang Provinces (PIP R&D Component 2)
Project type Study
NARI code U10014
Donor code 562-3101-1-22964
Funds source PIP
Budget PGK 15,280
Project name Rearing Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL Hermetia illucens) as an alternative source of high protein from regenerating organic farm wastes into feed for fish and chickens (Project U10008: Phase 2)
Name abbrev BSFL for feed Rearing Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL Hermetia illucens) as an alternative source of high protein from regenerating organic farm wastes into feed for fish and chickens (Project U10008: Phase 2)
Detail
NARI team lead A. Roberts
Project team
Partners
Start date 2022/03/01
End Date 2023/11/30
Intended outcomes Availability of a low cost protein option to supplement fish and poultry diets; improved productivity of fish and village chicken;
Planned outputs 1) BSFL processing and storage of feed requirement for on station trials with known quantities established for feeding trials with an estimated production of >500kg of fresh, dried and processed BSFL meal 2) Attaining nutritional proxies for BSFL for formulated test diets under controlled conditions for fish and chicken feeding experiments
SRF Result area
Base location MRC
Status sort Current - ongoing
Project site list
Percent progress 50%
Project docs
Progress docs
NARI Annual Project Report_11FEB24_U10014.pdfNARI Milestone report Q2 22.pdfNARI Milestone Project Report_Q3_U10014.docxNARI Milestone report Q1 23.pdfNARI Milestone Project Report Q3 22.docxQ1 & 2 2024 Project Report - U10014.pdfNARI Milestone Proj Report_Q3_11OCT24_U10014.pdf
Final Report
Technical report
Other publications
Usage / Scaling option docs
Comments
Achievement summary Achieving mass has been a major challenge, whereas the poultry trial preparations are on schedule; getting over 300kg of dried BSFL has been the major setback. Since the project will end in March 2023, it is proposed that the project implementation plans moved till November 2023 to establish; 1. A BSFL mass production facility 2. Allow for funding to be prioritized for output 2 3. Allow for an extension to the project implementation plan 4. Postponed poultry trials to run in 2024 when there is mass available for testing.
Project photos
progressid
Year of record
Q 1
Q 2
Q 3
Q 4
progress view
2 2023 The progress of the project has been challenged particularly for output 2 milestones for mass production of BSFL. The work has managed to maintain breeding fly populations but to achieve mass requires more input and resources. According to the poultry village trial protocol, we would need a more than 387 kg of dried BSFL to which we have not achieved in the last 3 quarters. In the 1 & 2 quarter of 2023, we have prioritized to setup a BSFL rearing facility in the old aquaculture shed to which much of the work focused; 1. Clearing, cleaning and total wash-down of the old-aquaculture shed (Picture table 1) 2. Building feeding, harvesting and BSFL collection boxes 3. Boxing shelving to house feeding BSFL 4. Sieving table for collecting BSFL The facility and the arrangement of work with waste collection, waste processing, egg collection, cleaning requires daily routine work. There are a few improvements that the system needs to do to make the process more coherent. 1. Waste collected needs to be processed into fine particulates so that bulk waste material can be easily digested by the feeding larvae. What is recommended now moving forward is to breakdown the bulk material, de-water the breakdown organic material, sundry and feed the larvae. Right now, the efficiency of the feeding larvae is producing at a rate of 1kg of BSFL to 10kg of consumed waste wet weight. We plan to make these improvements to encourage efficiency within the system. 2. Artificial BSF egg production is low since bring in the breeding nets. It is recommended that we improve lighting within the shed and make a 10 – 20% harvest weight collection of larvae at their 6th star stage to increase BSF populations within the breeding nets. Work is continuing to improve the ratio of feed to BSFL production: The ratio of larvae to waste according to the sampled data from May to September of 2023 for naturally seeded BSFL collected from households is about 1: 10 (1 kg of BSFL harvested is to 10 kg of waste fed on). This ratio is rather large for an efficient system to utilize a period of 35 days of growing time to reach the 5th to 6th instar stage at 35-day periods. The current BSFL system is not efficient enough. A desirable target is to reduce this ratio to 1: 5 with the current capacity being established. This will require more efforts into artificially producing more egg clutches to add into existing pre-seeded wastes being harvested from the food boxes each week. The anticipated results are: 1.) increase the larvae output from 1 to 3 kg per week; 2.) improve waste reduction to larvae from 2.9% to 7% that was achieved in August (Graph 2); 3.) Improve bioconversion of wastes from 33% to 40% 4.) Reduce the harvested BSFL to waste ratio from 1: 10 to 1: 5 5.) Reduce feeding time rearing periods from 35 to 20 days (± 5 days) Public
Record 
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