Insects: a novel animal-feed protein source for the Australian market

Abstract

The increasing demands on natural resources to provide food and feed has led to increased global initiatives to improve production sustainability and efficiency. The use of insects as an alternate source of protein for human food and production-animal feed is one such avenue gaining attention. With there being a large variety of insect species endemic to each region, there is likely to be an ideal candidate for each specific production system and region. Insects require less land and water than do terrestrial animals, have high feed-conversion efficiency (FCE) and emit low levels of greenhouse gases (GHG). Insect species currently investigated for mass production include black soldier fly la..