Wageningen University & Research: Farmed insects fit in the durable food system

Edible insects can use the organic residual streams from agriculture and the food sector and make new food or feed from them. In this way they may make food systems more sustainable. ‘Farmed insects can contribute to a sustainable food system, but for that we need an enabling environment to use them properly,’ Alejandro Parodi concludes in his master thesis. He obtained his PhD degree last week, cum laude.

Parodi studied how sustainable insect production on residual streams is and made some exciting discoveries along the way.

Edible insect industry
Now that legislation is changing for food and feed applications, the edible insect
industry is growing. The initial reason for their introduction into European
food systems was their sustainability.

For his master’s thesis, Alejandro Parodi (Animal Production Systems) coordinated a review on the nutritional composition and environmental sustainability of novel foods, including insects, which was eventually published in Nature Sustainability. Insects turned out to use less land and have lower global warming potential than animal-source foods such as meat and milk, especially if they are raised on residual streams.