I have a hard time believing that already three months has passed since l returned to Laos and wrote the last column. I guess being busy catching up on months of inactivity prevents boredom. Anyway, after looking at localism in my last column, which comforted me with the idea of developing my own post-organic urban aquaponic farm in Vientiane, I got frustrated with the sustainability concept, which is more often taken as a marketing tool rather than a real technical issue.

So, to improve the sustainability of production from a practical perspective, I looked at adding two production subsystems to the aquaponics system. The first one under design right now is a small black soldier fly larvae production unit. After cleaning and preparing the plant production for sale to a supermarket, the accumulation of organic byproduct is quite large. If composting is an option for recycling organic waste on a regular farm, there is not much need for compost in an urban aquaponics farm. Reducing the volume of organic trash, while producing a new protein source seems to be a win-win situation. The frass, the leftovers from insect larvae feeding on aquaponics byproducts, is very good for biogas production. And here came the second idea to also integrate a small biogas digester to produce energy from the production waste.

Many of my aquaculture friends looked at the insect meal pilot project on my farm and were surprised to hear about insect meal for fish production. With this in mind, it was time to really study the production potential of insect larvae as a replacement for fishmeal. This idea seems perfect to reduce the impact of aquaculture on ocean ecosystems.

Let’s recall some numbers you probably already know. Farming of aquatic animals, while practiced for more than two millennia, only became significant for global protein production in the late 20th century. Global aquaculture production has increased rapidly only since the 1950s while global capture fisheries production reached a plateau in the early 1990s. According to FAO, aquaculture surpassed capture fisheries in 2016, and it contributed 52 percent of the total harvest weight of aquatic animals for human consumption in 2018. Furthermore, changing climatic conditions are expected to worsen in years to come and will force us to create new systems of food production in efforts to conserve oceans, land, water, energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Feeding such an enormous quantity of animals for human consumption is impressive. By 2027, Global Market Insights predicts that the animal protein feed ingredients market will be worth US$ 280 billion. This is mainly due to a human population that is expected to continue to grow, and with it a greater need for sustainable, high-quality protein. Predictions of future use of fishmeal in these sectors are for the amount to remain more or less constant and for the proportion of fishmeal used in feed formulations to decrease.

Roughly 25 percent of the fishmeal going into aquaculture is used to feed crustaceans, 15 percent to feed salmon and trout, 17 percent to feed marine fish and 21 percent to feed freshwater species. The rest was divided between tilapias, cyprinids and eels. If we want to be more sustainable, maybe we should look at other species that are herbivorous. Tilapia is a great example but many other species could be considered, such as rabbitfish. But why should we change our habits? We have the solution to improve the sustainability of our not-so-sustainable high-value fishes. Here comes the insect industry where scale is rapidly increasing, backed by investments and partnerships.

A RaboResearch report predicts that the demand for insect protein, mainly as an ingredient in feed and pet food could reach half a million tons by 2030, up from today’s market of about 10,000 tons. Right now pet food is the largest market for insect meal followed by aquaculture feed as a niche market representing only a few thousand tons. The insect industry is promoted by the Green and Blue Revolutions and the circular economy concept which is a top priority for the European Union and other government organizations.

A key pillar of the Blue Revolution is reducing the amount of fishmeal in animal feeds. Nowadays, research is looking seriously at different protein sources to replace fishmeal, such as plant protein, algal protein and insect meal. The main reason behind this research is to reduce pressure on wild fish stocks. We are probably at peak harvest of the oceans as fish stocks are overexploited and with climate change, the situation will not improve. It takes 4-5 tons of live fish to produce one ton of fishmeal. And about 6 million tons of fish are harvested each year to produce fishmeal. About 20 percent of this catch is used to feed other fish such as salmon. It is obvious that sustainability is an issue in our aquaculture production systems.

Insect meal is a natural choice to replace, at least partially, fishmeal in fish feeds. Indeed, in the wild, many fish eat insects and insect larvae. One of the most well-known insect larvae eaters in the wild is gambusia, a small fish that is a specialized consumer of mosquito larvae. It is used to control mosquito and is often dropped into large bodies of water from planes. Other specialized fish such as the archerfish have developed sophisticated methods for catching insects. And of course trout and salmon are insect eaters and are known for fly fishing sport activities.

So, suddenly some people realized that insect production is a way to increase food security worldwide. In fact, while we are contemplating the idea of insect meal as a fishmeal replacement, in some parts of the world insects are directly consumed by local populations. However, today insect meal is primarily looked at as an alternative source of protein for animal feed, which will reduce our dependence on fishmeal, simultaneously increasing the sustainability of aquaculture production.

The insect meal option is becoming even more attractive for the feed industry as soybean meal from South America is now seen as unsustainable due to extensive deforestation associated with a reliance on farm chemicals. So, one of the most attractive aspects of insect farming is sustainability. Insects can convert agricultural by products, urban organic food wastes and even agroindustrial inorganic wastes into larvae. The larvae can then be fed to aquatic animals, potentially improving the sustainability of fish feed production.

Applied research and trials on the production of insect meal and its inclusion as a protein source in aquatic animal feed has been ongoing for over a decade. Examples are numerous, and for instance, as early as 1982, in Thailand, pig and fish farming were integrated with maggot production. Ten kilograms of wet pig manure produced approximately 1 kg of maggots, which were fed to catfish grown in cages. Unfortunately, results have been varied as insect meal presents very high nutritional variability. However, data indicate that insect meal is a viable option to replace fishmeal in fish feed. The amino acid profile of insect meal is suitable for fish, with higher indispensable amino acid content that other meals.

Replacing fish meal with insect meal has no adverse effect on feed quality. For instance, trials conducted in Thailand in 2016 showed that the survival and growth of Letopenaeus vannamei larvae fed with insect meal was equivalent to that of larvae fed with a market shrimp diet containing fishmeal only. In short, insect meal increases sustainability of aquaculture production for similar feed quality and production.

Considering that feed cost represents 60 percent of the fish production cost, the main issue for insect meal to replace fishmeal is actually not feed quality but price. The price of insect meal is still too expensive, ranging from US$ 2000-5000/t, while fishmeal is about US$ 2000/t and soy protein at about US$ 350/t. The main issues in insect production can be summarized into production cost, legislative and regulatory void and animal welfare. The solutions will involve working with regulatory agencies, further upscaling the production and improving feed efficiency to decrease production costs.

Today, insect meals are promising protein sources for aquaculture feed but the main question I hope to partially answer in the context of a Southeast Asian urban aquaponics farm is: does the sustainability benefits that insect meal offer, such as decreasing the pressure on the marine ecosystem, justify the increase in production complexity and higher price?

This time, there is not much news regarding the activities of the APC but keep an eye on upcoming webinars. On behalf of the Board, I wish you great success in your aquaculture endeavors and assure you that we are all anxious to be in Singapore in late November and meet as many of you as possible
 — Jean-Yves Mével, President