Recent systematic review Published in Aquaculture ReviewsThis study evaluated the environmental effects of aquaculture and insect-based food sources. The results show that sustainability is not as simple as it seems for insect oils and meals.
Researchers discovered that while insect farming requires less land inputs to produce than conventional ingredients, it also has a higher energy use and a greater carbon footprint. Insect meal and traditional aquafeed ingredients were comparable in terms of environmental indicators. This suggests that while there isn’t much environmental benefit to adopting insect meal, the industry’s footprint could be largely unchanged if it adopts other ingredients.
Despite this finding making the sustainability pitch for insect sectors more complicated, the researchers pointed out that there is still plenty of room for innovation and growth in the industry. The insect sector is home to new technologies, investment and emerging research. These improvements in production efficiency and research could reduce the insect industry’s greenhouse gases emissions and make it more competive with conventional ingredients. Insect oils and meals could eventually have a lower carbon footprint, which could help reduce aquaculture’s overall environmental impact.
Moving insect meal beyond larval stage
Insect oils and meals are becoming a popular alternative to aquafeeds in terms of protein and fat. Insect meals, which are usually made from black soldier flies or mealworms, have a strong nutritional profile, can be produced at scale, and are economically feasible. Research has shown that freshwater and marine finfish can eat insect ingredients throughout the production cycle without experiencing any growth or performance problems.
Insect food also has a compelling sustainability pitch. Insects can be used in aquafeed as an alternative to marine ingredients. This addresses one of the sector’s sustainability woes. Other studies have shown that insects are more sustainable than marine ingredients in aquafeed.Insect farming requires less land and water resources than soybeans, but it is still possible.Another important aquafeed ingredient is The fact that Some insect species take waste products and turn them into digestible oils and proteins.Additional benefits include
Although it seems that aquafeed could be significantly less environmentally-friendly if it contains insect meals, this has not been quantified by researchers. There isn’t much published literature about the full environmental impacts of insect meal diets in aquaculture. The industry still produces small volumes of feed ingredients. It has not reached an economy of scale, making production more costly and less efficient than other ingredients. There is no comparison of insect ingredients and fishmeal on environmental indicators. This leaves many sustainability issues unanswered.
The complexity of measuring environmental impact
Although aquafeed and environmental sustainability are often discussed in terms of levels of fishmeal or fish oil, this is only a small part. Alternative feed sources are not the only way to sustain sustainability. Every alternative ingredient, even those made from insect-based ingredients, has its own water and land footprint. It also has its own potential for global warming. Researchers must understand all of this complexity to be able to say that a feed ingredient is environmentally friendly.
© CAT
The researchers performed a systematic review on life cycle analyses (LCAs), which included ingredients derived from three insect species, including the black soldier fly. (Hermetica illucens)Meatworm (Tenebrio moilitor)The housefly (Musca domestica). LCAs assess the environmental impact of a product over its lifetime and also measure the systems that produced it, from raw materials to processing and disposal.
LCAs were used in the systematic review to assess the global warming potential and energy use as well as the acidification and eutrophication caused by insect-derived substances. The economic fish-in, fish-out (eFIFO) method was also used to evaluate the potential benefits of replacing marine ingredients using insect oils and meal. This helped to quantify the environmental impacts of using insectmeal as an aquafeed ingredient, and show how it compares to fishmeal and oil.
How does insect-based ingredient compare to marine ones?
The review showed that insect meals consumed less land than plant-based ingredients such as soy. Houseflies, which are the insect category, required less land inputs than mealworms. The researchers found that the land use efficiency of all three industries was roughly comparable when comparing them to fishmeal, single-cell proteins and insect production. Researchers also discovered that insect-based ingredients had a higher energy consumption and a greater carbon footprint than conventional marine ingredients. These findings were particularly evident when considering global warming potential and greenhouse gas emissions.
Overall, the review showed that replacing fishmeal in place of other protein sources led to increased global warming potential, energy consumption, acidification, and eutrophication. Researchers discovered that fishmeal and insect meals had similar environmental impacts after looking at the indicators. In many cases, insect ingredient gains in one area, such as land use, were offset with deficits in another area like solid nitrogen waste levels.
The only area where fishmeal fell short was in energy use, which was the lowest impact of all the experimental categories. Alternative aquafeed ingredients were found to have a huge impact on global warming, energy use, acidification, and environmental pollution. At this stage, choosing innovative aquafeed components won’t immediately result in an environmentally friendly product.
Calculating the replacement possibility
Insect ingredients were able to reduce aquafeeds eFIFO. This was an area where they excelled. Researchers discovered that this replacement potential is possible for multiple species. This means that aquaculture could become a net producer of fish rather than a net consumer if it uses insect meals instead of fishmeal. Insect oils and meals could play an important role in conserving finite fish resources and meeting growing demand for aquafeed protein. [and]According to the experimental analysis, lipid sources
However, researchers stressed that replacing marine ingredients completely with insect meals would require nutritional enrichment, especially for amino acids or essential fatty fatty acids. The quality and method of processing insect feeds will affect the nutritional profile of insect meal. The insect oil’s lipid levels can range from 16.6 percent to 40.3 percent. This must become more consistent in order for it to make a one to one swap.
In the near future, mixing microalgae-derived ingredients with insect ingredients would create alternative feed sources that are nutritionally comparable to fishmeal. It would also allow for higher amounts of insect ingredients. [in aquafeed]The researchers stated that this would reduce dependence on marine fish resources.
The devil is in details
Although some aspects of the review are positive, the authors point out that the industry must make significant improvements to be sustainable and competitive with marine ingredients.
Researchers say the sector must become more efficient and produce better substrates to attract its insects. The biggest environmental impact of fly farming is its food source. Each food source has environmental ramifications.
The review revealed that distillers grains are a promising food source of black soldier flies and houseflies. The grains aren’t always efficient in terms of environmental impact and drive a lot more water use in the insect industry. It is important to adopt a high-quality substrate to increase the sector’s environmental footprint. As the industry grows, insect producers will need to balance the nutritional and environmental benefits.
Similar to the literature, feeding insects food waste and manure as substrates that could help the industry move towards a circular economic model is not possible in all cases. In the European Union, strict regulations are in place for feeding food waste to animals. Mealworms can’t metabolise manure. To be able to attain competitive lipid and protein profiles, insect larvae need consistent feed inputs. This means that relying solely on wastes with variable nutrients may not be an option.
The industry needs to determine the best substrate for raising insects and quantify its environmental impacts. This would provide a more complete picture of the industry’s sustainability credentials and allow for more consistent protein and fat levels in insect meals.
The challenges of early stage innovation
Although this is a complicated picture, researchers quickly pointed out that there are multiple factors that influence the environmental impact of insect-based diets. They also noted that there is great potential for improvement in the insect industry. This is in contrast to the marine ingredients sector. The sector’s forage fish stocks are a finite resource. They are already operating at their peak efficiency. Although insect farming is just beginning to be established, it is still producing small quantities. If the insect industry can scale up and operate more efficiently, it could be able to eclipse marine ingredients.
Researchers believe that insect-rearing facilities must be optimised. The environmental impact of insect-based ingredients will be greatly reduced if the facilities are built and operated with minimal wastage. Facilities that scale up can take advantage of vertical production and multi-level shelves as well as stackable boxes. This could reduce land use metrics. Access to renewable energy may reduce impact measures by 25 per cent. This would reduce the facilities’ environmental burden and make heating/drying costs more affordable. The researchers recommend that insect facilities be built in equatorial climates to lower heating expenses.
The sector can make significant progress by focusing on its location and construction, as well as using the best substrates for insects. The sector is attracting large investments and increasing its production volume. This could encourage further investment and innovation. It could also make the industry’s on-paper environmental pitch stronger.
Researchers believe that insect oils and meals won’t be the only ingredients used by the sector to create sustainable aquafeed. It is more likely that the industry will use a combination alternative protein and/or lipid sources with low environmental impacts. This will allow feed formulators to be more strategic in their ingredient selections and take into account potential innovations from the wider alternative ingredients sector.
