Eating More Bugs Could Help The Environment Even More Than We Thought

The benefits of being sustainable have made insects a food of the future.

Mealworms take up less resources to produce than traditional farming so they are an excellent source of food.

In a new opinion paper, scientists propose that changing to a diet that includes insects could have positive effects on how we grow crops.

The waste products created from the production of insects for human food and animal feed can be used to grow sustainable crops.

Crop farmers could potentially benefit from an organic soil Additive that promotes plant growth and impacts the soil Microbiome in a way that can promote plant health if the insect farm byproducts are used.

A novel organic soil amendment is emerging from the production of a new source of animal proteins, that is, the production of insects such as yellow mealworm, lesser mealworm, and house cricket.

The production of insects for food and feed results in two different things: insect exuviae and frass. Frass is insect poop and unconsumed insect food, which could become a potential alternative to conventional pesticides.

An important component of insect exuviae is chitin, a high-molecular weight polysaccharide that is also present in fungal cell walls and the exoskeleton of many crustaceans. The authors note that Chitin-Containing soil amendments have been shown to promote plant growth.

Marcel Dicke, a plant biologist from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, says that there is a set ofbacteria that can metabolize chitin, and that helps plants to be more resistant to diseases and pests.

When exuviae are added to the soil, the beneficialbacteria increase.

Adding insect feces to the soil can promote plant growth since they are rich in nitrogen and can be hard to come by in most soils. Synthetic nitrogen is added to soils.

Adding insect frass to the soil has been shown to increase the amount of nitrogen in the soil. The authors of the paper say that the impact of insect frass amendments on the soil microbiome may be an important factor in promoting plant growth and health.

The potential for exuviae to be a means of pest control is mentioned by the researchers. Plants can be boosted by beneficial soilbacteria that convert exuviae into chitin, which can also cause changes in plant biology, such as attracting mutualist insects.

When a plant is attacked by an insect, its leaves are capable of producing volatiles that attract the predator of the pest.

Dicke calls it the plant's cry for help.

The authors believe that the application of insect-rearing byproducts to crops could be a step towards a circular food system. The use of leftovers from insect production to promote crop growth closes the circle.

Dicke believes that the next step is getting more people to eat insects. They are already a staple in several parts of the world.

In many African countries, Locusts are collected early in the day and boiled, cleaned and salted before being eaten. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, you can find caterpillar in the markets all year long.

Dicke says he has eaten crickets, mealworms, and locusts.

Many people in our part of the world need to get used to eating insects, but I have eaten many other insect species around the globe, and I have always had a wonderful meal on them.

The journal Trends in Plant Science published the study.