Agribusiness group, Twynam, is in the advanced stages of planning a “fly farm” in the Sydney Basin as part of the global roll-out of a new-age stockfeed industry.
South African waste-to-nutrient pioneer, AgriProtein, wants to build up to 25 factory-based “farms” annually around the world.
It will feed organic waste to flies and in turn produce maggots to be converted into an insect protein base for animal and aquaculture feeds.
Using a high-tech blueprint developed with European engineering firm, Christof Industries, AgriProtein intends building 100 factories by 2024.
A further 100 are anticipated by 2027.
Its $10 million partnership will make insect protein a mainstream ingredient for poultry, pigs and fish farmers and the pet food industry.
Twynam Agricultural Group, better known for its big pastoral holdings and irrigated cropping in NSW, has been been one of AgriProtein’s earliest and largest individual shareholders.
It began its investment interest in the fly breeding business more than three years ago and intends to build plants in major centres around Australia.
It has 20 licences for AgriProtein projects.
The insects in question – black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) – are harmless to humans and tend to avoid human habitats, but are common in the Australian bush, particularly in heavily vegetated areas with damp soils.
They are not the same as pesky household flies, or blowflies, although some soldier fly species are a significant root pest of pastures and sugarcane in Queensland.
Each heavily gauzed and escape-proof farm will contain about 8.5 billion head, producing maggot larvae feeding on about 200 tonnes of urban waste products every day.
Food waste drawn from restaurants, supermarkets and food processing plants, plus manure from intensive livestock sites, will be on the maggot menu.
“Everything will be done in a completely controlled environment – from breeding the flies to production of the meal – it will be all contained inside the plant,” a Twynam spokesman said.
Black soldier fly larvae can rapidly chew through vegetative material rapidly, multiplying their body weight almost daily.
Twynam’s farms will each produce about 20 tonnes of wet larvae daily, which will be dried and crushed to create a 55 per cent protein maggot meal, MagMeal.
The first Australian plant is expected to produce at least 15t of dry MagMeal a day, plus five tonnes of MagOil (an omega 6-rich oil for stockfeed use), and at least 60t of daily food waste compost for horticulture or broadacre crops.
A smaller South African prototype has been operating in Cape Town for two years, recently upgraded by Christof Industries to enhance its automation processes and boost insect numbers and meal output to about 7000t a year.
The plant, which handles about 91,000t of organic waste a year, will be the model for other licensed operations in Vietnam, South America, North America, the Middle East and Australia.
“AgriProtein uses organic waste that would otherwise go to landfill to make natural, high-protein feed products which offer a sustainable alternative to fishmeal and soybean meal,” said chief executive officer, Jason Drew.
“Waste-to-nutrient technology is starting to get traction and price per tonne is key in the fight to replace fishmeal.
“Using insect meal in animal feed allows the oceans to heal and reduces greenhouse gases at every stage of the chain, while also tackling the waste crisis.
“But we need to move quickly, because the world is running out of fish.”
Twynam has not specified where its Sydney region factory will be built by Christof, or when production is likely to begin, but said planning was well advanced.
“We will be 100pc in charge of the Australian operation and we’re 100pc committed to this as one of Twynam’s core projects,” the company representative said.
“We’re very focused on making sure Twynam is part of a sustainable future for agriculture and committed to improving the sustainability of the planet.”
Twynham Group director Johnny Kahlbetzer, has noted rising global food demand clashing with environmental issues, including over-fishing in Asia and elsewhere, were fast exhausting marine fishmeal supplies for aquaculture and land-based livestock feeds.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation expected global fishmeal demand for fish and poultry farming would exceed supply by 5m tonnes by 2024.
Intensive poultry, piggery and fish production also depended on grain crops which in turn required considerable land and water resources.
AgriProtein’s industrially-scalable solution to helping fish stocks in the Indian Ocean was one of two fly larvae projects to win $450,000 each in federal government support in September’s Blue Economy Challenge awards.
Other winning projects ranged from a household aquaponic system for fish production to seaweed and sea cucumber farming.
Twynam Agricultural Group, founded in the early 1970s by John Kahlbetzer (senior), is based on a 50,000 hectare Australian property portfolio covering sheep, cattle, citrus, grain and cotton production.
The Kahlbetzers have also had Argentine farming interests since the 1980s where their LIAG Group now has 160,000ha of livestock and irrigated and dryland grain production.