Meet the former Cuban doctor breeding flies for fish feed
In a rustic workshop on the outskirts of Havana, he incubates the flies. Like much in Cuba, the equipment and tools Diaz uses are handmade from whatever he can scavenge.
Over the last decade, initiatives in France, the Netherlands, the UK and elsewhere have invested in the farming of black soldier flies. Ferocious waste eaters, the larvae consume urban and agricultural biological refuse, forming masses of wiggling high-protein maggots that can be processed for use in animal feed and in pet food.
And their production comes at a very low cost, Diaz explained.
"A friend gave me the idea in 2019 after I had practiced internal medicine for over 20 years, and that broadened my horizons," he said.
That year, new U.S. sanctions hit the Communist-run country, on top of a decades-old trade embargo. The pandemic then crippled tourism and domestic industry, and inefficiencies in the state-run model slowed the recovery, leaving the Caribbean island nation short of cash to import just about everything. A long economic downturn followed.
The government last year began looking into the benefits of raising flies to make up for a dramatic drop in imported feed for livestock. Diaz said a handful of people in Cuba have begun their own small enterprises.
Last year, Diaz sold 300 kilograms of larvae to freshwater fish farms in Cuba, with each kilogram selling for 450 pesos (around $3.75, at the official exchange rate when dollars are available). He hopes to sell 1,000 kg this year. That is many times what he could have earned as a doctor, though he says his main interest is sustainability for Cuba.
"We convert that garbage into protein, into gold for the animals, and the waste into fertilizer. We also help the environment," Diaz said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
How a Jamaican student invented a self-disinfecting door handle for hospitals: ‘Design that fits reality'
When the Jamaican university student Rayvon Stewart invented a workable model for a door handle that could disinfect itself after every touch, it was hailed as a potential gamechanger for hospitals, hotels and other businesses, with promising implications for controlling the spread of disease, particularly during pandemics like Covid-19. Speaking at a recent product launch, Alison Drayton, assistant secretary-general of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), a 15-member bloc of Caribbean countries, described the invention as a 'meaningful solution' for the region and a 'life-saving design that fits our reality'. Stewart, now 30, was just 23 and a student at Jamaica's University of Technology when he conceptualised the pioneering ultra-violet self-sanitising door handle model, he calls Xermosol, which he says can kill 99.9% of pathogens but is safe for people and animals. Since then he has been working to bring the product, patented under the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Patent Cooperation Treaty, to market, winning Jamaica's Prime Minister's National Youth Award and the Commonwealth Health Innovations Awards in the process. Today, his invention is celebrated as a symbol of the Caribbean's growing science and technology talent pool, with Drayton describing it as a 'powerful expression of what happens when innovation is rooted in purpose and fuelled by resilience'. Stewart grew up in a poor household with his grandmother, in the rural farming community of Mount Prospect. 'Even though times were tough, we never really thought about that. We knew that we had something to do as a family,' he said. The software engineer and his cousin were the first in their family to go to university. There, he discovered his love of inventing and entered a competition with his first idea: 3D modeling software that would allow people to virtually fit clothes before purchasing online. When he started volunteering in a hospital, his passion for innovation became about solving a problem. 'I saw how patients were suffering, the assistance that they needed, and how difficult it was for the nurses,' he said. This, he added was the inspiration for Xermosol. Dr Camille-Ann Thoms-Rodriguez, a University of the West Indies consultant microbiologist, said that, while the invention did not replace the need for World Health Organisation cleaning guidelines in hospitals, Stewart's smart self-sanitising door handle was an innovative tool that can be used alongside others, for infection control. 'We're very proud of him,' she said. 'A lot of the innovation that we see in healthcare is often from a first-world country where there are more resources … but it doesn't mean that we don't have good ideas here,' she added. Kirk-Anthony Hamilton, co-founder of Tech-Beach Retreat, a Caribbean-based tech platform that connects innovators, entrepreneurs and investors through summits, programmes and investment, said there was a growing desire in the region to tackle ambitious tech projects. 'Young people in the Caribbean are seeing what opportunities they're missing out on, and they want to be a part of it. They're reading stories about a guy in a garage coming up with a concept, and two years in, the company is making $50m a year,' he said. This, he added, was challenging the notion of success being limited to professions such as medicine and law. 'Now we're understanding … that there is this massive space to operate in that affords you even greater levels of opportunity and access and that you can be solving problems beyond the scope of your geographic boundaries, using technology.' In the broader field of digital technology, businesses such as the software development company BairesDev, which has a global workforce of more than 4,000, said it saw a 400% increase in applications from developers in the Caribbean between 2020 and 2024. One possible explanation for this, the company's director of talent acquisition, Felipe Turra, said, was the increased demand for software engineers during the Covid pandemic as lockdowns drove innovation. 'Companies started saying, hey … I need to develop new applications, because people can't leave home,' he said, adding that the Caribbean being largely aligned to the US, both in terms of language and culture, made it a good fit for its US-based clients. For Stewart, the shift in innovations and increasing digital talent is 'challenging the myth that there isn't awesome, life-changing technology in the Caribbean'.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
How a Jamaican student invented a self-disinfecting door handle for hospitals: ‘Design that fits reality'
When the Jamaican university student Rayvon Stewart invented a workable model for a door handle that could disinfect itself after every touch, it was hailed as a potential gamechanger for hospitals, hotels and other businesses, with promising implications for controlling the spread of disease, particularly during pandemics like Covid-19. Speaking at a recent product launch, Alison Drayton, assistant secretary-general of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), a 15-member bloc of Caribbean countries, described the invention as a 'meaningful solution' for the region and a 'life-saving design that fits our reality'. Stewart, now 30, was just 23 and a student at Jamaica's University of Technology when he conceptualised the pioneering ultra-violet self-sanitising door handle model, he calls Xermosol, which he says can kill 99.9% of pathogens but is safe for people and animals. Since then he has been working to bring the product, patented under the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Patent Cooperation Treaty, to market, winning Jamaica's Prime Minister's National Youth Award and the Commonwealth Health Innovations Awards in the process. Today, his invention is celebrated as a symbol of the Caribbean's growing science and technology talent pool, with Drayton describing it as a 'powerful expression of what happens when innovation is rooted in purpose and fuelled by resilience'. Stewart grew up in a poor household with his grandmother, in the rural farming community of Mount Prospect. 'Even though times were tough, we never really thought about that. We knew that we had something to do as a family,' he said. The software engineer and his cousin were the first in their family to go to university. There, he discovered his love of inventing and entered a competition with his first idea: 3D modeling software that would allow people to virtually fit clothes before purchasing online. When he started volunteering in a hospital, his passion for innovation became about solving a problem. 'I saw how patients were suffering, the assistance that they needed, and how difficult it was for the nurses,' he said. This, he added was the inspiration for Xermosol. Dr Camille-Ann Thoms-Rodriguez, a University of the West Indies consultant microbiologist, said that, while the invention did not replace the need for World Health Organisation cleaning guidelines in hospitals, Stewart's smart self-sanitising door handle was an innovative tool that can be used alongside others, for infection control. 'We're very proud of him,' she said. 'A lot of the innovation that we see in healthcare is often from a first-world country where there are more resources … but it doesn't mean that we don't have good ideas here,' she added. Kirk-Anthony Hamilton, co-founder of Tech-Beach Retreat, a Caribbean-based tech platform that connects innovators, entrepreneurs and investors through summits, programmes and investment, said there was a growing desire in the region to tackle ambitious tech projects. 'Young people in the Caribbean are seeing what opportunities they're missing out on, and they want to be a part of it. They're reading stories about a guy in a garage coming up with a concept, and two years in, the company is making $50m a year,' he said. This, he added, was challenging the notion of success being limited to professions such as medicine and law. 'Now we're understanding … that there is this massive space to operate in that affords you even greater levels of opportunity and access and that you can be solving problems beyond the scope of your geographic boundaries, using technology.' In the broader field of digital technology, businesses such as the software development company BairesDev, which has a global workforce of more than 4,000, said it saw a 400% increase in applications from developers in the Caribbean between 2020 and 2024. One possible explanation for this, the company's director of talent acquisition, Felipe Turra, said, was the increased demand for software engineers during the Covid pandemic as lockdowns drove innovation. 'Companies started saying, hey … I need to develop new applications, because people can't leave home,' he said, adding that the Caribbean being largely aligned to the US, both in terms of language and culture, made it a good fit for its US-based clients. For Stewart, the shift in innovations and increasing digital talent is 'challenging the myth that there isn't awesome, life-changing technology in the Caribbean'.
BBC News
09-08-2025
- BBC News
Stunning snails to ice mummy tattoos: Ten of the best science pictures of the week
The most striking images from the world of science this week: including an anniversary on Mars, a maze of 1.5 million books, and apes with a taste for alcoholic fruit. In Cuba, a type of tree snail is a much sought-after decoration for the vivid swirling colours on its shell. So much so that several species of the Polymita tree snail are disappearing from the forests of Eastern Cuba. A mission is now ongoing to try to save these beautiful tree snails from extinction. Victoria Gill has the story. Bernardo Reyes-Tur A big day for Curiosity On 5 August, Nasa celebrated 13 years of the Curiosity rover ambling over the surface of Mars. In those years Curiosity has clocked up 22 miles (35km) and sent back reams of data from the Red Planet. This information is helping piece together the mystery of why Mars' surface radically transformed from a watery landscape to the dusty red desert it is today. Shortly before its anniversary, Curiosity sent back images of a curious coral-shaped rock. It's thought the rock gained its unusual shape through mineral deposition from an ancient water flow, followed by billions of years of sandblasting by Martian winds.
