The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Use of insects as feed could save habitats
Using insects to feed fish and livestock could cut the UK’s use of soy by a fifth and protect important habitats, a report has suggested.
Research commissioned by wildlife charity WWF in partnership with Tesco found that the demand for insect meal from the UK’s pig, poultry and salmon sectors could reach 540,000 tonnes a year by 2050.
That could mean around 16,000 tonnes of fishmeal and 524,000 tonnes of soy being replaced, the equivalent to 20% of the UK’s projected soy imports in 2050, or Tesco’s entire 2018 soy footprint.
Around 150,000 hectares of land was required to produce that amount of soy annually, almost the size of Greater London, it said.
The report stated that cultivation of soy, threequarters of which goes to animal feed, was fuelling the conversion of natural habitat to cropland and climate change, hitting key landscapes such as Brazil’s Cerrado where more than 100,000 hectares is lost each year for soy growth.
Switching to insect meal would reduce that pressure, and has the advantage that many insects recycle and decompose biological material such as surplus food, by-products and other things that might otherwise go to waste, turning them into useful protein, the report said.
At the moment, processed insect protein cannot be fed to farmed livestock intended for human consumption, although the EU is expected to amend legislation to permit its use in pig and poultry feed and the UK could follow suit, and it is permitted in aquaculture.
The report suggested that around 240,000 tonnes of insect meal could be produced by UK insect farmers but the growth of the industry was lagging behind other countries and only a limited number of materials for feeding the insects reared for animal feed were authorised.
WWF and Tesco are calling on the UK Government to require the Food Standards Agency, with input from Food Standards Scotland, to look at the potential and regulatory requirements for using more materials for insect farming.
Tesco wants the government to develop financial incentives to support innovative farming methods, including insect farming, to help them scale-up, and WWF is urging aquaculture suppliers and retailers to work to increase demand for insect meal.