Environment Office Encourages Maggot Farming for Reducing Organic Waste

TheIndonesia.co - The environment office in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), continues to encourage the public to turn to maggot farming to help reducing the volume of organic waste and for the larva’s economic value.

Mataram environment office said it will support members of public who want to start cultivating maggot because it can reduce household’s organic waste that will be dumped in landfills.

“To support residents that want to cultivate maggot, we’re ready to hold training and provide the larvae to be farmed,” head of the office HM Kemal Islam said on Wednesday, August 3, as reported by Antara.

He said maggot farming is not difficult to do, and a person only has to put the larvae in a container and feed them with food waste.

“Maggots will then reproduce, and it’s what we have been doing at the Kebon Talo Maggot Center,” Islam explained.

According to him, the cultivation center in Kebon Talo already has 20 containers for maggot cultivation, and a 1x2-meter container can produce 30 to 40 kilograms of maggots.

They must be harvested every 14 days because maggots will turn into pupas after a longer period.

Besides helping with waste reduction effort, maggots can also be used as food for livestock.

Islam said the cultivation center currently sells the maggot at Rp 6,000 (US$0.4) to Rp 7,000 per kilogram, and the sale profit is used for operational. The profit is currently unable to be included as regional income because, as of now, there is no sufficient legal basis for it.

“Therefore, if the potential continues to grow, we’ll prepare the regulation to submit the profit to the region,” he ensured.