From yuck to profits: Some Zimbabwe farmers turn to maggots to survive drought and thrive

NYANGAMBE, Zimbabwe (AP) — At first, the suggestion to try farming maggots spooked Mari Choumumba and other farmers in Nyangambe, a region in southeastern Zimbabwe where drought wiped out the staple crop of corn.

After multiple cholera outbreaks in the southern African nation resulting from extreme weather and poor sanitation, flies were largely seen as something to exterminate, not breed.

“We were alarmed,” Choumumba said, recalling a community meeting where experts from the government and the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, broached the idea.

People had flocked to the gathering in hope of news about food aid. But many stepped back when told it was about training on farming maggots for animal feed and garden manure.

“People were like, ‘What? These are flies, flies bring cholera’,” Choumumba said.

A year later, the 54-year-old walks with a smile to a smelly cement pit covered by wire mesh where she feeds rotting waste to maggots — her new meal ticket.

After harvesting the insects about once a month, Choumumba turns them into protein-rich feed for her free-range chickens that she eats and sells.

Up to 80% of chicken production costs were gobbled up by feed for rural farmers before they took up maggot farming. Many couldn’t afford the $35 charged by stores for a 50-kilogram (about 110-pound) bag of poultry feed, said Francis Makura, a specialist with a USAID program aimed at broadening revenue streams for farmers affected by climate change.

But maggot farming reduces production costs by about 40%, he said.

The maggots are offspring of the black soldier fly, which originates in tropical South America. Unlike the house fly, it is not known to spread disease.

Their life cycle lasts just weeks, and they lay between 500 and 900 eggs. The larvae devour decaying organic items — from rotting fruit and vegetables to kitchen scraps and animal manure — and turn them into a rich protein source for livestock.

“It is even better than the crude protein we get from soya,” said Robert Musundire, a professor specializing in agricultural science and entomology at Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe, which breeds the insects and helps farmers with breeding skills.

Donors and governments have pushed for more black soldier fly maggot farming in Africa because of its low labor and production costs and huge benefits to agriculture, the continent’s mainstay that is under pressure from climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In Uganda, the maggots helped plug a fertilizer crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. In Nigeria and Kenya, they are becoming a commercial success.

In Zimbabwe, the government and partners piloted it among farmers struggling with securing soya meal for their animals. A World Bank-led project later used it as a recovery effort for communities affected by a devastating 2019 cyclone.

Now it is becoming a lifesaver for some communities in the country of 15 million people where repeated droughts make it difficult to grow corn. It's not clear how many people across the country are involved in maggot-farming projects.

At first, “a mere 5%” of farmers that Musundire, the professor, approached agreed to venture into maggot farming. Now that’s up to “about 50%,” he said, after people understood the protein benefits and the lack of disease transmission.

The “yuck factor” was an issue. But necessity triumphed, he said.

With the drought decimating crops and big livestock such as cattle — a traditional symbol of wealth and status and a source of labor — small livestock like chickens are helping communities recover more quickly.

“They can fairly raise a decent livelihood out of the resources they have within a short period of time,” Musundire said.

It also helps the environment. Zimbabwe produces about 1.6 million tons of waste annually, 90% of which can be recycled or composted, according to the country’s Environmental Management Agency. Experts say feeding it to maggots can help reduce greenhouse emissions in a country where garbage collection is erratic.

At a plot near the university, Musundire and his students run a maggot breeding center in the city of 100,000 people. The project collects over 35 metric tons a month in food waste from the university’s canteens as well as vegetable markets, supermarkets, abattoirs, food processing companies and beer brewers.

“Food waste is living, it respires and it contributes to the generation of greenhouse gases,” Musundire said.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, food loss — which occurs in the stages before reaching the consumer — and food waste after sale account for 8% to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, or about five times that of the aviation sector.

The university project converts about 20-30 metric tons of the waste into livestock protein or garden manure in about two weeks.

Choumambo said people often sneer as she goes around her own community collecting banana peels and other waste that people toss out at the market and bus station.

“I tell them we have good use for it, it is food for our maggots,” she said. She still has to contend with “ignorant” people who accuse maggot farmers of “breeding cholera.”

But she cares little about that as her farm begins to thrive.

From bare survival, it is becoming a profitable venture. She can harvest up to 15 kilograms (about 33 pounds) of maggots in 21 days, turning out 375 kilograms (826.7 pounds) of chicken feed after mixing it with drought-tolerant crops such as millets, cowpeas and sunflower and a bit of salt.

Choumambo sells some of the feed to fellow villagers at a fraction of the cost charged by stores for traditional animal feed. She also sells eggs and free-range chickens, a delicacy in Zimbabwe, to restaurants. She's one of 14 women in her village taking up the project.

“I never imagined keeping and surviving on maggots,” she said, taking turns with a neighbor to mix rotting vegetables, corn meal and other waste in a tank using a shovel.

“Many people would puke at the sight and the stench. But this is the sweet smell of food for the maggots, and for us, the farmers.”

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Maggot breeder, Chemari Choumumba works at a production tank of maggots at her home in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Maggot breeder, Chemari Choumumba works at a production tank of maggots at her home in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Maggot breeder, Chemari Choumumba stands next to a production tank of maggots at her home in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Maggots are held by a worker at a maggot breeding centre in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, Friday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Maggots are held by a worker at a maggot breeding centre in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, Friday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)