Due to the environmental and nutritional benefits of insects, their consumption would be one of the solutions to feed the growing human population. Despite the increasing interest in the use of insects as food and feed, consumer acceptance is the major obstacle to successful implementation in Western countries and we studied the factors that influence consumer acceptance in a group of university students from Germany and the Netherlands. In this exploratory research, a survey was conducted (n = 222). Socio‐demographic and psychological factors were established from a theoretical review. In addition, we elaborated on questions regarding information on the health and environmental benefits of consuming insects. Initially, the data obtained are presented through descriptive statistics. The influence of the socio‐demographic and psychological factors, and the information on the willingness to accept insects as animal feed and human food was analyzed using correlations and multiple linear regressions. Results showed more willingness to accept insects as animal feed than in human food. The acceptance among German and Dutch students seems to be driven by issues similar to those in other European countries, such as visual aspects and knowledge about the benefits. The effect of the information on willingness constitutes an important finding of this study, especially for the use of insects in animal feed, since most of the previous studies have focused on the use of insects as human food. Our data support the need to inform and educate consumers about the environmental and health benefits of entomophagy. We conclude that effective efforts to implement entomophagy could increase the level of familiarity with the insect food and inform (or educate) consumers about its benefits. Insights from this study are useful to address studies focusing on specific segments of possible early adopters and consequently addressing communication strategies in this market segmentation.
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This report gives a scientific overview of the present knowledge on insect rearing, use of residual streams as substrates, and safety aspects of insects used for food and feed. This overview will form the basis for experiments in the public-private partnership (PPP) project SAFE INSECTS (LWV20.102).
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Flyer with information about the lectureship INVIS, HAS Hogeschool. Extend and integrate knowledge, experience, and education on healthy and safe insect and fish culture: Investigate risk factors and support the use of healthy and safe insects in aquaculture feed in cooperation with feed processors.
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Flying insects like dragonflies, flies, bumblebees are able to couple hovering ability with the ability for a quick transition to forward flight. Therefore, they inspire us to investigate the application of swarms of flapping-wing mini-drones in horticulture. The production and trading of agricultural/horticultural goods account for the 9% of the Dutch gross domestic product. A significant part of the horticultural products are grown in greenhouses whose extension is becoming larger year by year. Swarms of bio-inspired mini-drones can be used in applications such as monitoring and control: the analysis of the data collected enables the greenhouse growers to achieve the optimal conditions for the plants health and thus a high productivity. Moreover, the bio-inspired mini-drones can detect eventual pest onset at plant level that leads to a strong reduction of chemicals utilization and an improvement of the food quality. The realization of these mini-drones is a multidisciplinary challenge as it requires a cross-domain collaboration between biologists, entomologists and engineers with expertise in robotics, mechanics, aerodynamics, electronics, etc. Moreover a co-creation based collaboration will be established with all the stakeholders involved. With this approach we can integrate technical and social-economic aspects and facilitate the adoption of this new technology that will make the Dutch horticulture industry more resilient and sustainable.
Lipids, proteins and biological active compounds that are present in insects can serve as nutrient source for poultry production. Because of the potential benefit effects of using insects as feed additives, we must consider the effects of gut microbiome on the insect affects itself, and the expected effect on the microbiome of the broilers that consume these insects. This is specifically important in the situation where live insects are fed to poultry, without prior processing. In this proposal we describe to study whether larvae fed to broilers will affect their microbiome in a positive way for practical applications in poultry industry. Hence, a pilot proof-of-concept study will be carried out as basis for a follow-up proposal for a larger project in the future, that we also like to set-up within this project. In that follow-up proposal, focus will be on the effect of different substrates for insects, on the insect microbiome, to spike insects with specific bacteria and to track their microbiome dynamics over time, and the effect of these insects used as a feed additive on the broiler gut microbiome. This study will provide results on if live Black Soldier Fly larvae (BSFL) can affect the broiler gut microbiome in a positive way, and relevant outcomes will be exploited in a follow-up research proposal in which these effects will be unraveled in detail for adoption by the industry. The project is a collaboration between cooperative insect company RavenFeed and NGN Pro-active both with knowledge on BSFL rearing, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR) with knowledge on insect diseases and microbiome analysis, Schothorst Feed Research (SFR) highly experienced in poultry nutrition research and having unique poultry facilities, and Aeres University of Applied Sciences Dronten (AHD) with research facilities for BSFL rearing under experimental conditions.
Human kind has a major impact on the state of life on Earth, mainly caused by habitat destruction, fragmentation and pollution related to agricultural land use and industrialization. Biodiversity is dominated by insects (~50%). Insects are vital for ecosystems through ecosystem engineering and controlling properties, such as soil formation and nutrient cycling, pollination, and in food webs as prey or controlling predator or parasite. Reducing insect diversity reduces resilience of ecosystems and increases risks of non-performance in soil fertility, pollination and pest suppression. Insects are under threat. Worldwide 41 % of insect species are in decline, 33% species threatened with extinction, and a co-occurring insect biomass loss of 2.5% per year. In Germany, insect biomass in natural areas surrounded by agriculture was reduced by 76% in 27 years. Nature inclusive agriculture and agri-environmental schemes aim to mitigate these kinds of effects. Protection measures need success indicators. Insects are excellent for biodiversity assessments, even with small landscape adaptations. Measuring insect biodiversity however is not easy. We aim to use new automated recognition techniques by machine learning with neural networks, to produce algorithms for fast and insightful insect diversity indexes. Biodiversity can be measured by indicative species (groups). We use three groups: 1) Carabid beetles (are top predators); 2) Moths (relation with host plants); 3) Flying insects (multiple functions in ecosystems, e.g. parasitism). The project wants to design user-friendly farmer/citizen science biodiversity measurements with machine learning, and use these in comparative research in 3 real life cases as proof of concept: 1) effects of agriculture on insects in hedgerows, 2) effects of different commercial crop production systems on insects, 3) effects of flower richness in crops and grassland on insects, all measured with natural reference situations
