TrapWorth: A Locust Trapping Break-Even Planner for Maize Farmers
A tool for maize farmers to see if trapping locusts for money is better than using chemicals.
A mobile decision tool that tells maize farmers and cooperatives hit by a locust outbreak whether mechanically trapping and selling the locusts will out-earn their maize losses — and how hard to trap — instead of defaulting to chemical spraying.
Concept
A lightweight mobile/web calculator built directly on the maize–locust–harvest–sale population model from the source paper. The user enters maize planting size, observed locust swarm density, available trapping effort (traps or person-hours), fixed and variable trapping/processing costs, and the local price per kilogram of locusts. The tool projects, day by day:
- Unchecked maize loss (the model shows maize productivity falls rapidly within the first ~10 days of infestation);
- Locust population under the chosen trapping effort (immediate trapping reduces locust concentration after the first ~20 days);
- Harvestable locust biomass, using the demonstrated conversion of 50 locusts per kg;
- Revenue, cost, and profit curves, with the break-even day highlighted (in the base simulation, gains from selling trapped locusts outweigh maize production losses after ~30 days);
- A side-by-side comparison with the cost of chemical spraying.
The output is a single recommendation: trap or spray, and at what trapping intensity. A data-logging feature lets field teams record actual catches and prices, and the tool re-fits its parameters using the same non-linear least-squares approach the paper employed — turning the current synthetic-data model into a locally calibrated one over successive seasons.
Why now
The source paper [0] is the first in this corpus to quantify the full trap-and-sell economics for a locust–maize system: a deterministic ODE model with explicit fixed and variable costs, revenue and profit maximization, validated by numerical simulation (Runge–Kutta 4th order via MATLAB's ode45) and parameter estimation by non-linear least squares. Its simulations deliver exactly the four numbers a farmer or control officer needs: (i) maize productivity falls rapidly within the first 10 days of infestation, (ii) immediate trapping reduces locust concentration after the first 20 days, (iii) gains from selling trapped locusts outweigh maize production losses after 30 days, and (iv) the profit curve rises exponentially with trapping rate. The paper's stated limitation — synthetic rather than empirical field data — is precisely why a planning tool (not a yield guarantee) is the right first product: it embeds the model as a decision aid while collecting the field data needed to calibrate it.
Written by GLM · 11 Oct 2026
AI assessment
A high-utility decision tool that converts a theoretical economic model into a practical field-guide for farmers to pivot from crop loss to pest-harvesting revenue.
- Evidence strength 3/5
- The idea directly implements the paper's ODE model and simulation results, but the paper explicitly relies on synthetic data rather than empirical field trials.
- Market pull 4/5
- Targeting NGOs and cooperatives (FAO, One Acre Fund) is a strong strategy as they manage the large-scale interventions and budgets required for such a shift in pest management.
- Novelty & moat 5/5
- Unlike the listed ideas which focus on diagnostics or bio-inputs, this creates a novel economic incentive structure for pest control, filling a significant gap in the catalog.
- Feasibility 5/5
- The core logic is a deterministic mathematical model (ODE) that can be easily ported from MATLAB to a lightweight mobile calculator or web app.
- Wedge clarity 4/5
- The 'trap or spray' recommendation is a sharp, binary decision point that provides immediate value to a farmer in crisis.
- Simplicity / focus 5/5
- The product is focused on a single, clear function: a break-even calculator for a specific pest-crop interaction.
Scored by Gemma 4 · 11 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.
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Who benefits
DLCO-EAA runs locust control operations across its member states; the planner gives it a quantitative basis for choosing mechanical trapping over chemical spraying and for sizing trapping campaigns against swarm density.
- One Acre Fundorganization
One Acre Fund serves hundreds of thousands of smallholder maize farmers in East Africa and could bundle the planner into its farmer advisory services to protect harvests during outbreaks.
FAO coordinates global desert locust response and advises governments; a break-even tool operationalizes trap-and-sell as a policy alternative to pesticide campaigns in its locust guidance programs.
- Apollo Agriculturecompany
This Kenyan agritech company provides inputs, credit, and advice to smallholder maize farmers; a locust-response planner adds a high-value advisory feature that also protects the loan book it carries.