FARMERS grow all manner of things ... corn, beans, carrots, lucerne, oats and hay ... but what about insect larva and flies?
Flyfarm in southeast Queensland does exactly what its name promises, it farms flies.
The farmer in this story goes by the name of Oliver Warcup, or Ollie for short.
Mr Warcup said when asked what he farms and ‘flies’ is the answer, well, ‘they don’t quite believe me’.
“I’m from an agricultural background so cattle, pigs or sheep would probably be more believable,” he laughed.
“It can be a difficult thing for people to wrap their head around.
“We have people delivering packages to site and they ask, ‘what exactly do you do here?’
“I say, ‘well, we farm flies ... it’s in the name fly farm, but it still takes a good five to ten minutes for them to get a full understanding of what it is we actually do.”
Flyfarm is a business that undertakes a wide range of activities all of which involve the black soldier fly.
The black soldier fly is one of Australia’s larger native flies with a plump thorax and abdomen.
There is a part to this story that involves consumption but thankfully this doesn’t involve wing plucked fly bodies sautéed in butter.
“We supply our product to pet food and aquaculture industries,” Mr Warcup said.
“We are trying to displace other sources of protein like fishmeal and soy and in doing this, their impact on the climate.”
“Their impact on the world has been detrimental, soy requires a lot of land space, whereas we are using food waste to create a source of protein.”

He said Flyfarm’s target market was insect based pet and fish food, and it