Winnie Wambui

Winnie Wambui is the co-founder of Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm, an insect farm on the edge of Nairobi that uses black soldier fly larvae to tackle two problems at once: mountains of rotting market produce and the rising cost of animal feed. The larvae feed on discarded fruit and vegetables, then are dried into a protein meal for poultry and fish, while the leftover frass is sold to farmers as fertiliser.

Her path into insects began during her third year studying energy engineering at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, after hearing people talk about the problem of market waste. She ran her first experiments in 2022, and her final year thesis became the blueprint for the business. With an incubator programme and mentors at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), she received training and free starter crates, while partners met through the incubator helped her put up an insect greenhouse.

Today the farm processes about 30 tonnes of organic waste each month, producing around one tonne of dried larvae meal and six tonnes of fertiliser across more than 2,000 production units. An eight person team, mostly women, supplies poultry and fish farmers and feed mills, and sells larvae starter kits to other growers. The business earns enough to cover wages, taxes and bank loans. In 2025 Winnie spoke on an icipe youth panel at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar, and she aims to win at least three percent of Kenya's animal feed market.