Insect farming as food and feed has gained popularity. Insects require less land and water and are efficient in feed-food conversion, making them a sustainable alternative source of protein for food fortification and feed formulation. Some insects play a vital role in bio-remediation of organic waste as they feed on waste breaking it down to frass that has the potential to be used as an organic fertilizer in food production. Insects therefore, have great potential to contribute to climate-smart farming. This research explored the potential of cricket frass as an organic fertilizer for growing Cleome gynandra. Different levels of cricket frass and cowmanure were as follows: 10, 15, and 20 t/ha; 100, 150, and 200 kg/ha of Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and a control (no fertilizer) were used for the experiments. One experiment was sent in a controlled environment inside a greenhouse and a second one in the open field. In the greenhouse, Completely Block Design (CBD) was used while in the open field Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used. Parameters observed were plant height, number of leaves and biomass weight. Results showed that crops treated with frass gave longest plants, most number of leaves and had the heaviest biomass weight.

http://www.eje.cz and high fecundity. In addition, it is more environmentally friendly and less expensive to rear insects for food.The fi eld cricket, Scapsipedus icipe Hugel and Tanga (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) (Tanga et al., 2018) is edible and could be used to reduce malnutrition at local and global levels. It is a native of Kenya and well adapted to the tropical climate of Africa including Madagascar (Tanga et al., 2018;Magara et al., 2021). This insect is highly nutritional in terms of protein, fat, fi bre, mineral and vitamins (Murugu et al., 2021). As food for humans, this cricket can be fried and eaten as a snack or processed into fl our and still remain highly nutritional. It can also be offered as feed for other insects (Mwale et al., 2022), or as food for livestock, such as pigs (Miech et al., 2017). Like other Gryllidae, S. icipe can feed on a variety of foods including agricultural by products, vegetable materials, commercial food, forage and even weeds (

Commelina species are plant resources full of promise as future food and feed that thrive in diverse ecosystems. They are medicinal plants, leafy vegetables, forage for ruminants, feed for cricket insects, crop protection, and fuel. However, information regarding factors driving Commelina in agro-ecological zones in Western Kenya is lacking. Therefore, we investigated the diversity of Commelina species, the composition of associated weed species as well as environmental and management factors affecting their diversity and distribution based on 22 variables from 12 production sites. In the survey, 115 species belonging to 30 families were recorded of which 11 Commelina species were identified. Among Commelina species, Commelina diffusa and Commelina benghalensis var. benghalensis (non-hybrid variant) had higher relative density. Multiple linear regressions revealed that the environment (exchangeable sodium percentage, magnesium, soil pH, and total nitrogen) and management (agriculture system type) variables exert a stronger effect on the diversity of Commelina species. Detrended Correspondence Analysis detected different ecological conditions for Commelina species and the composition of associated weed species. The forward selection based on Canonical Correspondence Analysis indicated that the distribution of Commelina species responded significantly to soil pH, available phosphorous, total nitrogen, fertility, and crop spacing. Partitioning variation showed the great importance to the environment than management (10.57% versus 5.97%). The low shared variance (environment × management) was −0.4%, indicating that the two factors have a more individualistic than interactive nature. However, the 83.86% that remained unexplained was attributed to stochastic variation or unmeasured variables. This study suggests that the identified five important How to cite this paper: Irakiza,