<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18928">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Farmed insects could provide feed for livestock</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=author>Paula Park</DIV>
<DIV class=source>28 September 2012</DIV>
<DIV class=date><A
href="http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/news/farmed-insects-could-provide-feed-for-livestock.html">http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/news/farmed-insects-could-provide-feed-for-livestock.html</A></DIV>
<DIV class="article_content cf">
<P><SPAN>Common house flies (<EM>Musca domestica</EM>) may be a cheap and
sustainable source of feed for farm animals, according to a scientist and an
entrepreneur. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>The flies, whose larvae can be bred, nurtured and ground into granules,
provide roughly the same amount of edible protein as fish meal and other widely
used protein sources, said entrepreneur Jason Drew. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Drew's book, <EM><SPAN>The Story of the Fly and How it Could Save the
World</SPAN></EM><SPAN>, launched in London, United Kingdom, last week, argues
that the insect's larvae should be farmed commercially to provide protein for
farmed fish and animals to feed the world's growing population.
</SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Commercially bred flies can live on slaughterhouse or distillery waste,
rather than on foods that could be processed and sold to humans, which also
makes them <A
href="http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/">environmentally</A>
sound, he said.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Drew and his brother David are breeding <EM>M. domestica</EM> to use in
fish farms in their Cape Town business, AgriProtein. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Jason Drew told <EM>SciDev.Net</EM> that AgriProtein feeds its breeding
stock waste human food, while the larvae produced consume slaughterhouse blood.
It has taken five years to develop the larvae farming process. Around one
million flies are kept in a cage of about 100 cubic metres producing about 1,000
eggs each. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>The larvae are hatched and harvested within 17 days, which is how long
they live before they turn into flies. They are then dried, flaked and sold as
meal. Last month, the company produced 100 tonnes of wet larvae and 24.5 tonnes
of feed, Drew told <EM>SciDev.Net</EM>. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>AgriProtein is one of the first companies to produce high quantities of
fly meal for commercial use, said Paul Vantomme, senior forestry officer for the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in Rome<EM>. </EM></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Vantomme added that <SPAN>using flies as animal feeds will be "a major
benefit to developing countries". </SPAN> </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>"Insect raising or gathering can be done without major cash
[investments]," he told <EM>SciDev.Net</EM>. "You don't need land."
</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>The challenges, he added, include maintaining sanitary conditions,
monitoring quality, and maximising larvae production. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Drew said the company plans to design an automated process for mass
production. It then plans to release technology for breeding small amounts of
larvae for animal feed to help small-scale farmers in South Africa, and beyond,
to develop their own livestock feed <A
href="http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/">farms</A>.
</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Meanwhile, a US-based company, Enviroflight, is developing black
soldier fly (</SPAN><EM>Hermetia illucens</EM><SPAN>) larvae to add to fish meal
for distribution to developing countries, according to Glen Courtright, chief
executive officer of the company. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>The larvae consume dry distillery grain solubles (DDGS) </SPAN>—
<SPAN>a waste product from brewing and ethanol production</SPAN> —<SPAN> leaving
a byproduct that can also be sold on as livestock feed. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Enviroflight is in negotiations with a global charity to use the
technology to help develop fish farms in South America, Courtright said.
</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>Similar research is ongoing in Thailand, too, but </SPAN><SPAN>Yupa
Hanboonsong, an associate professor
in entomology at Khon Kaen University in Thailand, said that not
all countries can use the same insects for feed. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>For example, in Thailand "you cannot use crickets because people eat
them," and it is, therefore, too expensive to use for livestock feed,
Hanboonsong said. Also, some insects are parasites on other commercially
valuable animals, such as the silk worm, so they should not be bred, he said.
</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>"If we are not careful about which are the right species to breed, it
may destroy our silk industry," Hanboo</SPAN>nsong told
<EM>SciDev.Net.</EM></P>
<P><SPAN>Developing an alternative source of protein would directly benefit the
poor, said Monica Ayieko, associate professor at Bondo University College, in
Kenya, who is researching breeding crickets. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>"The problem we have in Kenya, as in many other parts of Africa, is
that animal feed is competing with human feed," Ayieko told <EM>SciDev.Net</EM>.
</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>For example, she said, near Lake Victoria, the poorest people depend on
a small fish that used to be cheaper to purchase than most other foods. Now that
this fish is being used as feed for fish farms and for pet stores, the price has
gone up so only well-off consumers can buy it, she added. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN>"The challenge will be mass rearing insects," she
said.</SPAN></P></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>