A sharp, earthy smell hangs in the air inside a greenhouse at Egerton University. At first, it makes visitors hesitate. But step closer and the reason becomes clear: what smells like waste is actually the foundation of a thriving agribusiness.

The fly farm that made a young Kenyan agripreneur a millionaire

Inside, 26-year-old masterโ€™s student Charity Kelsy has built an enterprise that turns discarded food scraps, fruit peels and vegetable leftovers into something valuable. Using the fast-breeding black soldier fly, she converts organic waste into protein-rich feed for chickens, fish and pigs, as well as organic fertiliser. What many people throw away without a second thought, Kelsy sees differently. โ€œWhen I see waste, I see money,โ€ she says.

Inside the greenhouse, a set of love cages made from repurposed mosquito nets line one section. This is where adult flies mate. A female black soldier fly can lay up to 1,500 eggs in her lifetime, depositing them in structures called eggies. The larvae that hatch are the heart of the operation, harvested regularly and converted into protein products, while the by-product, an organic fertiliser called frass, is packaged separately.

Kelsy is pursuing a master’s degree at Egerton, studying the black soldier fly as a novel source of fish feed. She has also been to China and Jordan on several occasions to consult on black soldier fly farming, and she trains farmers and advises government agencies and non-governmental organisations on the practice.

At 24, she made her first million shillings from the enterprise. โ€œIt not only gave me financial freedom as a young woman but also improved my family’s earnings,โ€ she says.

That combination, youth, innovation, and measurable financial returns from agribusiness, drew a standing ovation when Kelsy shared her story at a recent forum in Nairobi, where scholars, scientists and women farmers gathered to intensify calls for greater investment in women’s empowerment in agri-food systems.

โ€œWe do not need to go far to be convinced that things are happening,โ€ said Appolinaire Djikeng, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (Ilri), who singled out Kelsy’s work. โ€œIt is rewarding to hear that there are young people getting into agribusiness not because they are desperate but because they see it as a professional opportunity to build wealth.โ€

Read:ย Mathare woman turning slum waste into gold

Kelsy’s path has not been without obstacles. She points to land ownership as one of the biggest challenges she faced early on. Without land, she could not access the credit she needed to boost her enterprise. Her solution has been to partner with farmers who own land in Nakuru and Kisumu counties, setting up demonstration plots where she trains young people in black soldier fly farming while using those same farms to grow her own.

Beryl Awour, a fish farmer in Homa Bay County who was recognised at the forum, faces a different but equally stubborn barrier: technology. Specifically, a lack of refrigeration along the fish value chain causes post-harvest losses when fish spoil before reaching the market.

โ€œThe biggest challenge we face in the fishing industry is post-harvest loss caused by spoiling fish. We can significantly minimise this by keeping fish fresh for longer using refrigerators โ€” that is a sure way of boosting the livelihoods of the fishing community,โ€ Beryl says.

Kelsy and Awour are two of 10 women farmers whose resilience and innovations caught the attention of the organisations behind the Nairobi forum: African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (Award), CGIAR, Cifor-Icraf, Ilri and the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe). The forum was convened specifically to call for increased investment in women’s empowerment in agri-food systems, framed as essential to achieving social justice, food security, inclusive growth and climate resilience, and it was held in the buildup to International Women’s Day.

Its theme,ย โ€˜Rights, justice, action: co-creating equitable agri-food systems with women at the centre,โ€™ was not incidental. It reflected a growing body of evidence that women’s contributions to agriculture across Sub-Saharan Africa remain chronically undervalued despite being indispensable.

A 2025 report on the status of women in agri-food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, compiled by Award, the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, maps the full scale of the problem, examining how gender inequality, climate change, environmental degradation and other socioeconomic factors combine to undermine women’s livelihoods, food security and access to natural resources.

Susan Kaaria, Award’s director, quoted the report’s findings at the forum: women contribute 49 per cent of the agricultural workforce in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 76 per cent of working women across the region are employed in agri-food systems. “This means the agri-food system is a hugely important sector for women farmers,” she said. The forum also heard that closing gender gaps in agri-food systems could add 1 trillion US dollars annually to global GDP and reduce food insecurity for 45 million people.

The forum found a concrete, recent success story in the work of Phyllis Nduva, a mango farmer in Makueni County who has spent years leading the fight against the African fruit flyโ€”the notorious pest that had locked Kenyan mangoes out of the European Union market. Nduva leads the Makueni Fruit Processors Cooperative Society, which has championed integrated pest management techniques, including traps designed by Icipe that use pheromone technology to lure and capture the pest.

The results have been significant: Kenyan mangoes are back in the European Union market. “This victory has translated to improved livelihoods for thousands of mango farmers and traders across the country,” Nduva told the forum, which received her account with the same attention it had given to Kelsy’s black soldier fly facility and Awour’s refrigeration challenges.

What impressed scientists was not just what Nduva had achieved, but how: her deep understanding of how pheromone technology works, combined with a community-based approach to pest management, had turned a farm-level problem into a national export win.

Back in Nakuru, the greenhouse at Egerton University still carries its distinctive smell. Charity Kelsy does not mind, she has learned to read it differently from most people. To her, it is the smell of larvae consuming waste, frass accumulating in trays, protein building up in feed that will go to fish, pigs and chicken farms. She made her first million at 24, has consulted in China and Jordan, and is still a university student. The waste, as she says, is the money.

Byย Pius Maundu

https://farmerstrend.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-fly-farm-that-made-a-young-Kenyan-agripreneur-a-millionaire-.jpeghttps://farmerstrend.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-fly-farm-that-made-a-young-Kenyan-agripreneur-a-millionaire--150x150.jpegFarmersTrend# TrendingSuccess StoriesA sharp, earthy smell hangs in the air inside a greenhouse at Egerton University. At first, it makes visitors hesitate. But step closer and the reason becomes clear: what smells like waste is actually the foundation of a thriving agribusiness.Inside, 26-year-old masterโ€™s student Charity Kelsy has built an enterprise...New Generation Culture in Agriculture