Why insect farming for aquafeed is still at the larval stage
Why insect farming for aquafeed is still at the larval stagehttps://thefishsite.com/articles/why-in ... rval-stageExcerpts:
Dr Richard Newton, one of the UK’s preeminent insect farming experts, explains why the sector has a long way to go before it can produce protein capable of competing with the commodities that are the current mainstay of the aquafeed industry....
... People had been doing it in various forms for years – such as hanging rotting carcasses over ponds so that maggots fall off them and help feed the fish. ...
... Soon after that I managed to secure some funding from companies looking for better ways to utilise salmon mortalities. We produced insulated versions of the biopods which we stocked with larvae and took to a farm on the west coast. I started out with 100 larvae which I bought from a pet shop – they’re sold as live food for lizards – and grew them in my house initially. My business plan was to sell the larvae produced from the project as live food for reptiles – the regulations aren’t so strict, as they’re not going into the human food chain and the mark-up is huge. One hundred live larvae (about 10g in total weight) sell for about £4 – [ie about £400,000 per tonne]. This may be related to the following thread in our forums:
Scientific Trial in Scotland @ Salmon Farms (
link)
