Idea 450 of 500. Cluster 23: The women who are not working
Insect farms that turn food and market waste into protein feed for the fish farms and poultry, replacing imported feed
The mechanism, from the book
The single largest unused asset in the country is sitting at home. Much of what keeps it there (childcare, safe transport, working hours) can be sold as a service, and the industries that would employ it can be built.
Every idea in cluster 23 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Collect a week's food waste from two restaurants and a market stall, and start a small trial of fly larvae on it. Weigh what goes in and what comes out. Take a dried sample to two fish farms and a poultry farm, and ask what they pay for imported feed and what they would pay for this. The proof is one farm's trial order.
- Who pays first
- A fish or poultry farmer who pays a high price for imported feed and wants a cheaper protein made locally.
- What leaves today
- Food waste rots and feed is bought from abroad; insects turn the waste into feed and keep that money at home.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. OneThe Letter That Says Yes and Means No
32% of adult women in work, against 70% of men
More from cluster 23
- 436Childcare co-operatives run by mothers for mothers, licensed and inspected, in every town
- 437After-school clubs at the schools, paid by the parents, run by teachers who want the income
- 438Women-only transport services for the night shifts and the early trains
- 439Home-based work platforms that pay properly: sewing, bookkeeping, transcription, design
- 440Shared workspaces for women with childcare attached, in Colombo and the district towns
- 441Women's craft co-operatives with a single brand and a single buyer abroad
Idea 450 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.