Smart Black Soldier Fly Farming in Tanzania: Using SenseCAP Sensors and Outdoor Gateway for Sustainable Livestock Feed Production!

I. Key Information

• Seeed Solution: SenseCAP LoRaWAN sensors (S2104 – Soil Moisture and Temperature Sensor, S2101- Air Temperature and Humidity Sensor, S2102 – Light Intensity Sensor, S2103 – CO2, Temperature, and Humidity Sensor, Barometric Pressure Sensor), SenseCAP Outdoor Gateway, SenseCAP Portal, SenseCAP Mate App 
• Creators: Shaukatali Zahir Hussein, Sahil Abdulalim, Said Kassim, Rahma Mussa
• Partners: TOIO, Robotech Labs, Seeed Studio
• Industry: Agriculture
• Deployment Location: Tanzania (Tanga)

II. Background

One of the biggest agriculture challenges in the growing economy of Tanzania is quality feed for livestocks, which looks like Figure 1. Unfortunately, the current means and procedures used to attain quality feed supplements cause excessive usage of natural resources and adverse effects on the environment.

Figure 1. Quality Livestock Feeds

(Image Credits and Source: FUSMAR)

Now, Tanga is a region that has a long history of traditional agriculture, not yet fully equipped with smart agriculture techniques and emerging technologies that can digitize and automize labor-intensive methodologies. According to Shaukatali Zahir Hussein – Founder and Technical Director of Tanzania Open Innovation Organization (TOIO) and Robotech Labs (Figure 2) – such a knowledge gap is deepening as time goes by, and volatile microclimatic patterns lead to crop failures, that is actually demoralizing for local people.

Figure 2. Shaukatali Zahir Hussein

(Image Credits and Source: Shaukatali Zahir Hussein)

Shaukatali shares his in-depth reflections on the background of this project:

“Approximately 40% of people from 27+ districts in Tanga are engaged in agricultural activities – as their means for day-to-day livelihoods. In the beginning, we needed to visit them to understand what types of exact agricultural challenges needed to be tackled, so that we could figure out which technical skills and knowledge should be transferred and taken ahead. Keeping in mind that the project had to be unique, easy to adapt and adopt, while ensuring the city council would promote its uptake, we decided to engage with Smart Black Soldier Fly (BSF) farming powered by AIoT. Some of the advantages of this project was the use of organic food wastes to feed the BSFs’  larvae – a sensible choice to do less harm to the environment, while their compost generated was used as a by-product, lessening the farming needs for chemical fertilizers. Most importantly, it did not require much space and materials to set up, as the majority of them were locally sourced. The only thing that was missing to ensure the maximum efficiency was IoT sensors that could monitor vital environmental parameters that directly affect the BSFs’ growth and health (Figure 3). Hence, we deployed Seeed’s SenseCAP LoRaWAN sensors and outdoor gateway to remotely monitor the environment. Now, people can monitor each environmental parameter on their smartphones in both real-time and chronological manners.”

Figure 3. BSFs’ Life Cycle

(Image Credits and Source: Jennifer Larouche)

III. Challenge

The feeds that are currently fed to livestock animals all require high levels of protein. In Tanzania, that protein comes from soy or fish meals, both of which consume a great amount of natural resources at an unsustainable rate. The good news is that there is an increasing level of interest and attention towards BSF Farming, as an alternative, inexpensive, and sustainable way of producing protein for animal feeds, thanks to the fact that it simply requires human’s organic wastes to grow!

BSF is an insect native to Africa, and its larva contains about 45% of protein needed by fish, poultry and piggery for their feeds (Figure 4). The feed can be used live for livestocks, and it can also be dried and processed to make a protein meal. How to make BSF farming become more sustainable and smart? Indeed, the challenge was to figure out how to digitally monitor and maintain the most suitable living environment for BSFs’ different stages of growth, mating, and health.

Figure 4. How Animal Feeds Based on BSFs’ Larvae Can Benefit Farmers?

(Image Credits and Source: The Rockefeller Foundation)

IV. Solution

TOIO is a non-profit organization that focuses on developing a variety of local community-led initiatives in Tanzania. Spearheaded by TOIO, local university students and citizens in Tanga co-created “BSF Farming – Creating Protein Content” project – a resource-efficient and low-cost protein production method by monitoring and optimizing BSFs’ living environment. This has been done by deploying Seeed’s SenseCAP LoRaWAN sensors (S2104 – Soil Moisture and Temperature Sensor, S2101- Air Temperature and Humidity Sensor, S2102 – Light Intensity Sensor, S2103 – CO2, Temperature, and Humidity Sensor, Barometric Pressure Sensor), SenseCAP Outdoor Gateway, SenseCAP Portal, and SenseCAP Mate App (Figure 5). By the way,for those looking to install a gateway indoors,SenseCAP M2 Multi-Platform LoRaWAN Indoor Gateway would be an excellent choice. It is specifically designed for indoor use and offers an economical solution that perfectly caters to their needs.The project sheds light on cultivating smart BSF farming as an alternative, sustainable, and accessible protein content production method to complement animal feed.