{"id":38248,"date":"2023-12-29T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/064b1023-a885-49f5-a9f4-41e38799ad5f"},"modified":"2023-12-29T10:46:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T09:46:20","slug":"why-bug-fed-farm-animals-could-become-humanitys-new-protein-source","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/why-bug-fed-farm-animals-could-become-humanitys-new-protein-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Why bug-fed farm animals could become humanity\u2019s new protein source"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite being a nutritious and sustainable food source, insects have yet to find their way onto our plates in a significant way. But these farms in Italy have found another, more palatable, way to use the protein in bugs: by turning it into animal feed. <\/p>

By Adam Hart\n <\/p>

Published: Friday, 29 December 2023 at 08:30 AM<\/p>

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When I was studying for my PhD back in the late 1990s, I read an article trumpeting the \u2018next big thing\u2019 in food. To be honest, the next big thing didn\u2019t sound very appetising. Apparently, within the next decade or so, we would all be eating beetle burgers.<\/p>

Entomophagy, eating insects, is common in many parts of the world. Given the ethical problems of farming livestock, insect farms were, the article boldly declared, the future of food.<\/p>

Raised without welfare issues, insects are excellent at converting foodstuffs we can\u2019t use into protein that we can. What\u2019s more, they require far less space than livestock and contribute far less greenhouse gases than cattle.<\/p>

But despite some clear advantages, a quarter of a century later diners in the developed world still aren\u2019t feasting on flies or baking with beetles. The reason for this is obvious: while more than 1,000 species of insects are eaten around the world, most commonly in the tropics, Western societies generally don\u2019t eat \u2018bugs\u2019.<\/p>

As the bushtucker trials of I\u2019m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here<\/em> demonstrate, insect-eating is an idea many people find disgusting.<\/p>

Piglets at theUniversity of Bologna\u2019sanimal house eatinganimal feed made with black soldier fly larvae. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Articles extolling the virtues of entomophagy continue to appear frequently in the media. And although the headlines often play on the perceived shock value, the authors are increasingly focussing on the ethical and climate-friendly aspects of insect farming.<\/p>

Look beyond the \u2018Locusts for starters\u2019 headlines, and you\u2019ll soon see that insects are already well-placed to play a more important role in our food chain. Rather than us chowing down on fried locusts with a mealworm side-salad, we\u2019re developing ever-better ways to use insects: as food for the animals we prefer to eat.<\/p>

Insects could be a protein-rich game changer<\/h2>

A major star of this insect animal feed revolution is the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens<\/em>). Only around 16mm (approximately 0.5in) long, the adult flies resemble small solitary wasps. This mimicry is just evolutionary trickery however, because soldier flies have no sting and don\u2019t bite either.<\/p>

A widespread species, it\u2019s their larvae that are key to the black soldier fly\u2019s importance. This is because black soldier fly larvae are \u2018non-selective\u2019 feeders, which is a polite way of saying that they\u2019ll eat almost anything.<\/p>

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Black soldierfly larvae. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato<\/figcaption><\/figure>

They thrive on all manner of food stuffs, from manure to animal and vegetable food waste \u2013 a characteristic that makes them excellent for waste disposal. This alone makes the black soldier fly useful to us, and that\u2019s before we even get to turning them into animal feed.<\/p>

The waste-disposal process is called \u2018ento-remediation\u2019 and uses large chambers called bioconvertors that house large numbers of black soldier fly larvae. These larvae consume food and other organic waste and, in so doing, produce a soil-like organic residue that can be used as a rich fertiliser.<\/p>

Inside the bioconverter, the larvae grow rapidly and 50 per cent or more of the weight they put on is protein. When they reach the pupal stage (the stage when they undergo metamorphosis to turn into an adult fly), they\u2019re at their nutritional peak. At this point, after they\u2019ve already been useful converting waste into fertiliser, they can be harvested and used to feed animals.<\/p>

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Bioconverters atthe BEF Biosystem facilityin Alessandria, Italy. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Insect animal feed can replace conventional animal feeds that often rely on soybean meal. Soy has a high environmental cost because of the land and water required to grow it, and the resources needed to transport it.<\/p>

Although much of the work on animal feed production has focussed on feeding livestock like pigs and chickens, black soldier flies are also being looked at as a food source for farmed fish. Currently, farmed fish food often consists in large part of fishmeal. Fishmeal, also used to feed livestock, is made by drying and grinding fish.<\/p>

While this can be a good use of the parts of fish that we don\u2019t eat, and of bycatch that can\u2019t be returned to the sea, fishmeal production can encourage overfishing and depletion of vulnerable marine ecosystems.<\/p>

Being able to replace fishmeal with sustainably farmed insects could be a game changer for key aspects of marine conservation.<\/p>

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Desert locusts (Locusta gregaria)bred for animal feedat the Italian CricketFarm in Turin, Italy – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato<\/figcaption><\/figure>

From pet food to people food<\/h2>

Black soldier flies aren\u2019t the only species being farmed for animal feed, however. Some locust species can be bred very successfully and are relatively easy to maintain.<\/p>

Because insects are small and don\u2019t require much space, it\u2019s possible to keep them in tightly controlled conditions to optimise their growth and reproduction. People who keep reptiles will likely be familiar with the house cricket (Acheta domesticus<\/em>). This pale brown cricket is widely cultivated for feeding pets, but is being looked at as a potential source of protein for farm animals.<\/p>

These insects could also end up as a more direct part of our diet. The Italian Cricket Farm, in Turin, Italy is investigating the potential for crickets to be processed into protein-rich \u2018insect flour\u2019 that can be incorporated into our food. Currently awaiting European Food Safety authorisation, it\u2019s exactly this sort of processing that may provide the culturally acceptable way for insects to enter our diet.<\/p>

In fact, crickets can be rather good to eat without processing them into flour. I ran an insect-eating workshop at the Cheltenham Science Festival some years ago, and a local chef prepared a series of dishes for people to try. Brown crickets between sage leaves, deep-fried in a beer batter were a nibble that people tried first out of curiosity, but then came back to for seconds because they were so delicious.<\/p>

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After digestingthe organic waste at theBEF Biosystem facility in Alessandria, Italy, the black soldier fly larvae are harvested and turned into animal feed. The digested organic waste is used for soil fertiliser – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The Italian Cricket Farm produces about 200,000 crickets a year, although this could be scaled up relatively easily. The efficiency of cricket production is impressive. Every 1kg (2.2lbs) of crickets requires just 1.7kg (3.7lbs) of feed to produce. When you compare that to the 10kg (22lbs) of feed required to produce 1kg of beef, the advantages become obvious.<\/p>

What\u2019s more, the end product is incredibly nutritious, containing twice as much protein as beef, as well as a wide range of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and other nutrients.<\/p>

Changing tastes and ethics<\/h2>

As with any new and emerging ideas in food production, we need to be careful to think through any potential disadvantages.<\/p>

Clearly, what an animal eats can affect the quality of the meat it goes on to produce. Research into this is ongoing, but so far the data suggests that while insect feeds can affect the fatty acid content of meat, these changes are neither detrimental nor noticeable in terms of taste.<\/p>

Another key issue that needs to be thought through is the ethics of farming insects. The ethical concerns of animal use are complex and change as society and our scientific understanding changes.<\/p>

Over the past decades we\u2019ve seen the introduction of far higher welfare standards for livestock farming than would have been thought necessary in the past, although many would argue that we still have a long way to go.<\/p>

These welfare advances have been focussed mainly on mammals, with a secondary focus on poultry, and far less focus on fish. Insects, however, haven\u2019t really featured at all in our ethical discussion of animal use.<\/p>

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An \u2018aviary\u2019at the BugsLife farm in Perugia, Italy,is where the blacksoldier flies are keptto encourage themto reproduce. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Indeed, we\u2019ve tended to think of insects as being incapable of feeling pain or suffering. But these views are beginning to shift.<\/p>

We\u2019re starting to learn more about the internal world of insects and discovering that they may be capable of feeling something we might identify as pain. It\u2019s an emerging area of study, but in many cases the conclusions are that we might have to reconsider how we think about insects.<\/p>

That said, I think it\u2019s very unlikely indeed that we\u2019ll shift our view to such an extent that insects will ever be afforded the same welfare measures as \u2018conventional\u2019 livestock. The greatest advantage of using insects for food, both directly and via animal feed, is environmental.<\/p>

Dredging oceans for fish meal or growing soy for protein feed are environmentally harmful, associated with high carbon costs and habitat loss or degradation.<\/p>

On the other hand, rearing insects has the potential for a far lower environmental footprint<\/a>. They take up less space, use less resource to produce more protein, can take advantage of human-produced waste and don\u2019t rely on exploiting or replacing habitat.<\/p>

Cranefly cakes and locust loaves might not be on your plate any time soon, but insect-reared pork, chicken and beef may well be. Perhaps that article 25 years ago was onto something, after all: insects might really be the future of food.<\/p>

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