Experts want edible insect bug to catch on
Farming opportunities
Environmentalists and Stirling University experts are bugging people to cultivate more crickets and flies to help save the planet.
Insect farming has been identified by environmentalists and Stirling University experts as a sustainable, new way to produce more food using less resources.
While there are no insect farms in Scotland or the rest of the UK, experts say the demand is there - and could be lucrative as well as making sense environmentally.
The Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre at Stirling University estimates that demand for insect protein from that sector alone is worth more than £25m per year.
Publicly-funded non-profit organisation Zero Waste Scotland has now published guidance online to help people take advantage of the lucrative job opportunities it believes insect farming can bring for reducing the waste and carbon emissions driving the climate emergency.
New European Union regulations introduced in 2017 allow farming of seven insect species, including field crickets and black soldier flies. The insects can be fed on pre-consumer food waste from supermarkets, arable farms and bakeries, such as surplus cereals, bread dough, liquid chocolate and crisps.
Farmed insects can then be fed in turn to farmed fish, and also used to make pet food.
Early this year EU regulations are expected to be extended to allow insects to be farmed to produce feed for poultry and pigs too.
William Clark, bioeconomy specialist at Zero Waste Scotland, said: “Insect farming is a really valuable, circular economy way for us to use food waste to produce more protein using less resources.
“You can set up an insect farm in a few shipping containers. You don’t need the acres of fields which traditional farming requires to feed more typical livestock, so insect farms aren’t competing for the same limited resources, like land and water.
“They can produce about 100 times more protein per year from the same amount of space than you would get by farming chicken or cattle.
“Farming insects in Scotland might sound unlikely or unappetising but it could play a significant role in solving Scotland’s food waste problem and reducing our reliance on imported crops like soy for agriculture and aquaculture, which drives up the carbon emissions behind the climate crisis.”
The new guide can be downloaded at https://www.zerowastescotland. org.uk/content/how-guide-insectfarmers.