Insect breeding

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Insect breeding (English: insect rearing or insect farming ) is the artificial reproduction of insects to satisfy human needs, for example as food ( edible insects ) for human consumption ( entomophagy ), as feed insects (live or processed as feed for domestic and farm animals), for pollination of cultivated plants or for biological pest control .

As a rule, insects are kept and reproduced on special nutrient substrates; actual breeding , i.e. targeted genetic modification, is not normally associated with this. The exception is the traditional Chinese silkworm breeding, in which the wild Bombyx mandarina was further bred to become the pet silk moth ( Bombyx mori ); the peacock moth, Samia ricini , which also produces silk , probably emerged from the wild form Samia canningi during breeding . The beekeeping has numerous races of the Western honey bee changed breeding. However, beekeeping is often not included in the actual breeding of insects.

For human consumption

Breeding of crickets in Thailand.

The breeding of edible insects is important for human nutrition, especially in Southeast Asia and Thailand there. There are about 20,000 farmers crickets ( Acheta domesticus a Grillenart) and another 120 Sagowürmer (larvae of the weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus breed as edible insects for human consumption). The house crickets are primarily fed normal, commercial chicken feed, the price of which is therefore essential for economic viability. The technique of breeding was developed at Khon Kaen University . The annual harvest of the farms is estimated at 7500 tons (status: 2011). In Europe there are various edible insect farms in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, which mainly produce larvae of the grain mold beetle and flour beetle as well as crickets as food and for further processing in insect food. Although, according to current research, reservations about eating insects are decreasing in industrialized countries, a greater role for insects in the diet appears unlikely, according to individual experts.

Most of the insect species used for human consumption in various parts of the world, according to a list by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), are not bred, but rather collected from their wild occurrences.

As animal feed

The breeding of insects for animal feed is widespread in the aquarium hobby and terrarium hobby, where numerous hobby owners breed house crickets, mealworms (larvae of the meal beetle Tenebrio molitor ) and numerous other species as food animals. Food animals for these purposes are also traded, and their breeding is of certain economic importance. In the US alone, more than 5 million crickets are shipped to pet owners each week from around 30 commercial cricket farms. The use of insects as fodder is not common in agricultural cattle breeding. Attempts are currently being made to use fly maggots such as the larva of Hermetia illucens ("soldier fly ") as food animals in fish farming in order to reduce the use of fish meal .

As a pollinator

Insect breeding for the pollination of crops is particularly important for use in greenhouses , where most of the natural pollinators fail. In addition to honey bees, bumblebees are increasingly used for this purpose. There have been initial approaches to this since the 1970s. Commercial breeders have been working in Belgium and the Netherlands since the late 1980s, where the three largest of the 30 or so worldwide commercial producers are still based today. Since around 1992 all Dutch tomato growers have been using bumblebees, which have completely displaced the previously common manual pollination. For 2004, around one million bumblebee colonies are expected annually.

In pest control

The use of farmed insects in biological pest control is also common, especially in greenhouses. In 2006, 22 large farms in North America (USA and Canada) produced a total of 38 species of beneficial insects . Their sales have been estimated at around $ 25 to 30 million.

Risks

While risks to human health are not yet known and are estimated by experts to be unlikely, environmental hazards exist if bred insects escape from breeding or the greenhouse outside their natural range and colonize the field as neozoa . In Europe, the case of the Asian ladybird Harmonia axyridis , which after escaping from breeding for biological pest control in 2001, has now become the most common European ladybird species, has caused a sensation. In North America, the establishment of the European dark bumblebee Bombus terrestris , with unknown consequences for the native fauna, is feared. Such consequences have already occurred in South America, a species indigenous there appears to be threatened with extinction due to competition from European imported bumblebees.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Yupa Hanboonsong, Tasanee Jamjanya, Patrick B. Durst: Six-legged livestock: edible insect farming, collection and marketing in Thailand. FAO, Bangkok, Thailand 2013. ISBN 978-92-5-107578-4 .
  2. ↑ WAZ / Jana Hannemann (May 25, 2018): That is why insects are the food of the future .
  3. ↑ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung / Petra Kaminsky (September 15, 2018): Pasta with six legs - insect meal from Holland .
  4. ↑ Caparros Megido, R., Sablon, L., Geuens, M., Brostaux, Y., Alabi, T., Blecker, C., Drugmand, D., Haubruge, É. and Francis, F. (2014): Edible Insects Acceptance by Belgian Consumers: Promising Attitude for Entomophagy Development. Journal of Sensory Studies 29: 14-20. doi : 10.1111 / joss.12077
  5. ↑ Daniel Szewczyk: Why Insects Are Not Our New Flesh Article, Die Welt, April 1, 2012.
  6. ↑ Patrick B. Durst, Dennis V. Johnson, Robin N. Leslie, Kenichi Shono (editors): Forest insects as food: humans bite back. Proceedings of a workshop on Asia-Pacific resources and their potential for development, 19-21 February 2008, Chiang Mai, Thailand. FAO, Bangkok, Thailand 2010. ISBN 978-92-5-106488-7 . Excerpt in German, translated by Birgit Rumpold: The contribution of insects to food security, livelihood and the environment. Guideline. issued by the FAO. PDF
  7. ↑ David B. Weissmann, David A. Gray, Hanh Thi Pham, Peter Tijssen (2012): Billions and billions sold: Pet-feeder crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae), commercial cricket farms, an epizootic densovirus, and government regulations make for a potential disaster. Zootaxa 3504: 67-88.
  8. ↑ Successes with insect meal for sustainable fish feeding Media release from September 19, 2013, FiBL Research Institute for Organic Agriculture.
  9. ↑ Hayo HW Velthuis, Adriaan Van Doorn (2006): A century of advances in bumblebee domestication and the economic and environmental aspects of its commercialization for pollination. Apidology 37 (4): 421-451.
  10. ↑ Keith Douglass Warner, Christy Getz (2008): A socio-economic analysis of the North American commercial natural enemy industry and implications for augmentative biological control. Biological Control 45: 1-10. doi : 10.1016 / j.biocontrol.2007.12.003
  11. ↑ Kimberly Winter, Laurie Adams, Robbin Thorp, David Inouye, Liz Day, John Ascher, Stephen Buchmann: Importation of Non-Native Bumble Bees into North America: Potential Consequences of Using Bombus terrestris and Other Non-Native Bumble Bees for Greenhouse Crop Pollination in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. A White Paper of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC). PDF ( Memento of the original from May 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pollinator.org
  12. ↑ Regula Schmid-Hempel, Michael Eckhardt, David Goulson, Daniel Heinzmann, Carlos Lange, Santiago Plischuk, Luisa R. Escudero, Rahel Salathé, Jessica J. Scriven, Paul Schmid-Hempel (2014): The invasion of southern South America by imported bumblebees and associated parasites. Journal of Animal Ecology 83 (4): 823-837. doi : 10.1111 / 1365-2656.12185