Insects Reared on Food Waste: A Game Changer for Global Agricultural Feed Markets?

Abstract

Insect-based food and feed have received a lot of attention recently. The EU Farm-to-Fork Strategy, for example, mentions insects as an alternative feed material that could reduce the environmental and climate impact of livestock production. Insects are an interesting source of feed because of their ability to convert many types of organic material into protein and fat, including food products that currently go to waste. Having an insect industry producing protein meal from recycled food waste would contribute towards more sustainable agricultural and aquaculture sectors. However, there are many questions associated with this development which we cannot answer at this point. For instance, how much food waste is actually available at the European and global levels for insect-based protein meal production? If we used the available food waste for insect meal production, what would be the consequences for the agricultural markets and how would it affect the agricultural GHG emission budget? In this article we show that there is a considerable amount of food waste that could be used for insect meal production; which would have substantial impacts on agricultural markets – particularly in the case where there was some relaxation of regulations. According to our calculations, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions would only be modestly affected.