Background
Black Soldier Fly (BSF)
farming is presently the most widespread form of insect farming in the world. With the
move to use more sustainable farming methods the rearing of BSF has become an instant
hit with farmers. It is currently being used in the development of agricultural inputs,
such as insect-based protein for animal feed for chicken, pigs and fish and organic
plant manure (compost).
Under completely
controlled climate conditions, the eggs hatch very quickly into tiny Black Soldier Fly
larvae which immediately begin feeding on organic waste. Uniform temperatures of 27°C to
32°C and humidity levels of 65-75% are needed to allow hatching of all the eggs within
the three days they are in the incubator. Temperatures below 25°C or above 35°C, and
humidity levels below 50% and above 80% fall out of the ideal conditions and would lead
to a low yield or slower hatching of the eggs. If after three days the eggs have not
hatched, they will have to stay in the incubator for another 5-7 days. This delays the
entire process by days or weeks. In a quest to optimize hatching of eggs and ensure 100%
harvest, monitoring the BSF incubator is necessary. The data collected can be used to
quantify successful harvest.
Accomplishments
So far I have been able to
develop an IoT-based room monitoring system using Sigfox LPWAN as the transmission
technology. The system was deployed in an incubator at GreyStones Farm in Nanyuki. We
have been receiving temperature and humidity data from the time of deployment in
December 2021. I also developed an Express JS web application to visualize the
sensor data.
Next Steps
The next phase of this
project is to implement the sensor monitoring system using GSM as the data transmission
technology. I will also host the web application and database on KENET servers