Insect farming is gaining traction worldwide as a potential source of food for humans, farm animals, and livestock, as well as a potential source of biofuel. Some companies are even engaged in gene editing of certain types of insects to improve the quality of their protein and speed up their development.
“The potential for insects in the food supply chain is enormous,” says entomologist Virginia Emery, founder and CEO of one such company, UK-based Beta Hatch.
Beta Bugs, based at the Roslin Innovation Center near Edinburgh, is dedicated to selecting insect strains with the best breeding characteristics. The company produces mealworms for use in aquaculture, farm animal nutrition, and pet food – the larva is rich in nutrients, meaning they work well as food and plant fertilizer.
Mealworms also have some incredible, almost illogical digestive abilities, which may expand their potential uses even further. “The only known way to biodegrade Styrofoam is in the gut of a mealworm,” Emery said.
Along with a company called Better Origin, which farms black soldier flies that can be used as biofuel, Beta Bugs and several other commercial insect producers recently founded a group called the Insect Bioconversion Association to lobby UK government for further regulatory approval for their products.
The insects may find their way into more of the human food supply in the near future — in 2021, the European Food Safety Authority approved yellow mealworms for human consumption, classifying them as a “novel food” with no risk to human health.
While that may sound strange to some, 2.5 billion people (about one-third of all people) worldwide already consume insects as part of their regular diets.
Compared to the high environmental impact of the meat industry, insect farming has a relatively small environmental impact — more insects in our diets means less planet-overheating and water-tainting pollution.
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