The rapid decline of insects is caused by multiple factors including climate change and agriculture, increases in the usage of insecticides and  herbicides, deforestation, urbanization, and light pollution. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Jan 27 2023 (IPS)

Recently, the United States Department of Agriculture granted a conditional license for the first-ever honeybee vaccine. This is an exciting step that will protect bees from American foulbrood disease and ultimately help to stop the alarming decline in their numbers.

But the honeybee is just one of the many described insect species whose declining numbers has entomologists like me, environmentalists, and everyday citizens who love insects including Monarch butterflies worried. Across the U.S. and around the world there is a growing body of evidence and trend of insect decline. It’s so bad, that many are calling it the insect apocalypse.

Currently, there are over 1 million described species. But in study after study, review after review the story has remained the same: we are losing insects at unprecedented rates. The rapid decline of insects is caused by multiple factors including climate change and agriculture, increases in the usage of insecticides and  herbicides, deforestation, urbanization, and light pollution.

Currently, there are over 1 million described species. But in study after study, review after review the story has remained the same: we are losing insects at unprecedented rates

Everyone should be worried about this trend. Insects, including bees, ants, butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, and grasshoppers, make up over 80% of terrestrial species on Earth. Insects are a keystone species that provide invaluable ecosystem services  – from pollination, to biological control to serving as bio-indicators of healthy soils and streams.

Annually, in the United States, the economic value of the vital ecosystem services performed by insects is estimated to be $57 billion.  In addition, over 75% of agricultural crop species and 85% wild flowering plants are pollinated by insects Furthermore, insects like dung beetles perform important functions like breaking down manure which is a service important to the U.S. cattle industry.

A world without insects would be disastrous. Insects are food to other species including birds and their demise would have catastrophic effects on food webs.

Human food and nutrition security also benefits from insects. Essential micronutrients in the human diet (antioxidants, vitamins A and C, lycopene, folic acid, and tocopherol) are derived from insect-pollinated crops, primarily citrus and other fruits and vegetables including tomatoes.

In total, pollinator mediated crops account for about 40% of global nutrient supply for humans. Conversely, the loss of insects can worsen hidden hunger (micronutrient deficiencies), which afflicts over 2 billion individuals globally. It can further threaten global food security and public, human, and environmental health.  Ultimately losing insects contributes to decreasing biodiversity with a devastating impact on life on Earth.

Clearly, we need insects. The U.S. government, policy makers, scientists like me and everyday citizens should act with urgency to prevent further declines in their numbers

Protecting insects from national and global declines will require a combination of approaches including several actions that individuals can take.

First, since habitat destruction is among the largest drivers of insect declines, it is important that countries — beginning with the U.S. — create diverse landscapes. This includes forestland, meadows, and prairies to provide a variety of food and nesting resources for insects.

Everyday citizens can contribute to the attainment of this goal by planting native plants and maintaining pollinator gardens. In addition, individuals who keep lawns can consider converting them to diverse natural habitats.

Second, we must reduce insecticide and herbicides usage. Managing pests and weeds can be done by using integrated pest management approaches or integrated vegetation management approaches. These approaches promote the use of safer alternatives and encompass multiple non-chemical methods such as the use of resistant cultivars, trap cropping, and crop rotation.

Third, we can reduce light pollution. Evidence available suggests that light pollution is a driver of insect declines as it interferes with insect foraging, development, movement and their reproductive success. Simple actions like turning outdoor lights off at night can make a huge difference.

Fourth, do your part to help reduce carbon emissions. Climate change is among the biggest drivers of insect decline. Simple actions by everyday citizens like biking to work and using renewable energy sources can make a difference.

Fifth, you can choose to become an ambassador and advocate for insects and insect conservation. Begin by learning about the local, regional, national, and global policies that are in place to protect insects to prevent further insect decline.

Furthermore, encourage elected officials and all forms of governments – from local to state to federal — to pass laws and policies to protect insects while implementing measures such as setting aside protected land spaces including parks to serve as refuge spaces for insects.

Complementing the above actions is the need to support research and educational institutions, professional societies, and  nonprofit organizations that are actively addressing insect decline issues through research and taking actions to protect our natural world and conserve ecosystems that are home to insect species. These include the Entomological Society of America , The International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology, and  The Xerces Society.

Finally, research and research funding are needed both now and in the future. This can help facilitate discovery of more insect species, monitor and document insect biodiversity across a diversity of landscapes and ecosystems and help us understand all facets of insect biology in natural and managed settings.

We need insects. Our ecosystems need insects. We must commit to doing something to protect them. Their existence is essential for a sustainable future.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Alicante course “Researching Biodiversity: Present and Future” ended in May with a tasting of edible worms and arachnids. Credit: Courtesy of the University of Alicante/Jesús Ordoñez

By Inés Benítez
MÁLAGA, Spain, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

A 280-square-metre warehouse in Coín, a municipality in the southern Spanish province of Málaga, is home to a unique type of farm, where insects are raised for human consumption and the production of animal feed. But despite FAO’s endorsement of insects as food, there are numerous obstacles holding back the development of this industry.

“We dehydrate the crickets and grasshoppers, then turn them into a flour that conserves almost all of their protein and other nutritional properties, which can be added to biscuits, cereal or energy bars,” explained Laetitia Giroud, a French national and the director of sales and product development at Insagri, the company that runs the farm.

Quality control systems have been established for each type of insect raised at the farm in Coín. Thousands of black soldier fly and mealworm larvae are bred for the production of feed for reptiles, fish and cattle, while the grasshoppers and crickets are processed for human consumption.

“Mealworms can also be dehydrated and used to make chips with a bit of salt added, and make an excellent snack,” Giroud told Tierramérica.

Insagri, which will begin to sell its products in August, has already found buyers for its insect flour for use in restaurants in the United Kingdom, France and Belgium, where interest has also been expressed by companies that specialise in the production of tomato sauce and other food products.

These three countries and the Netherlands are the only countries in Europe where there are regulations in place for the “sale of insects for human consumption,” explained Eduardo Galante, president of the Entomological Society of Spain and director of the Ibero-American Centre for Biodiversity at the University of Alicante, in southeast Spain.

In Spain, where Insagri is aiming at the cattle feed and dog and cat food markets, there is “a legal vacuum that permits the eating of insects in restaurants (which buy them from foreign suppliers) but not their sale for consumption,” Galante told Tierramérica.

Galante recalled that in 2008, health authorities vetoed an edible insect shop in La Boquería, a large public market and popular tourist attraction Barcelona.

These obstacles run counter to the recommendations from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) regarding the consumption of insects and their byproducts as a means of fighting world hunger.

A FAO report released on May 13, “Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security”, notes that insects are a “highly nutritious and healthy food source” due to their “high fat, protein, vitamin, fibre and mineral content.”

According to Giroud, in addition to the lack of appropriate regulation, there is a “cultural barrier” that acts as a deterrent to the human consumption of insects in Spain, unlike some countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia where it is a common practice.

“Eating insects is disgusting,” proclaimed Marisa, a resident of Málaga and mother of an eight-year-old daughter. She added, however, that the idea of eating them after they have been processed and turned into flour was “interesting”, because “at least that way you wouldn’t see them.”

FAO estimates that insects form part of the traditional diet of at least two billion people around the world, and that there are more than 1,900 edible species. The most commonly eaten include beetles, caterpillars, bees and wasps, ants, grasshoppers, crickets and locusts.

Southern Spain offers the “ideal weather conditions for raising insects, which need temperatures between 28 and 35 degrees,” said Giroud, who stressed that raising insects for food and feed is “cheaper and more environmentally friendly” than raising livestock, since they require less land and water and can be fed more sustainably.

“To obtain a kilogram of protein from cattle you need 13 kilograms of vegetation, while the same amount of protein can be obtained from grasshoppers with just 1.5 kilograms of feed,” she stressed.

In addition, she emphasised that Insagri is “the only company in Europe that uses organic feed for its insects.” For example, its mealworms are fed with organic flour supplied by a nearby producer.

Giroud also noted that eating insects is healthier “because they pose a much lower risk of transmitting diseases to humans,” which she attributes to the fact that they are cold-blooded and not hot-blooded like cows or pigs.

The concept of large-scale insect farming for food for humans is relatively new, although there are examples offered by cricket farms in Laos, Thailand and Viet Nam, notes the FAO report, which has sparked conflicting opinions in Spain.

“FAO’s proposal to fight world hunger by eating insects does not address the root of the problem,” said Esther Vivas, a researcher specialising in food and agricultural policies who insists that the solution “is not to find new inputs but rather to deal with the causes of hunger.”

Vivas, a journalist, sociologist and member of the Centre for the Study of Social Movements at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, told Tierramérica that “food must be made more accessible to the world’s population, because there is enough food produced to feed everyone.”

According to figures from FAO, while there are currently seven million people in the world, there is enough food produced every day to feed 12 billion.

Nevertheless, the UN agency notes in its report that overfishing, climate change and water shortages could have profound implications for food production for the nine billion people expected to live on the planet in 2050.

“It is precisely in these times of crisis, when responsible consumption and protecting the environment are needed more than ever, that it is easier to break down cultural barriers around the consumption of insects,” said Giroud, who launched her insect farm with Julien Foucher, another French national, for an initial investment of 24,000 euro (31,494 dollars); 5,000 euro (6,561 dollars) of this start-up capital was contributed by the non-profit Valle del Guadalhorce Rural Development Group, which is supported by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).

“They are the best alternative for carrying out a change in diet,” added Giroud.

Galante, for his part, pointed out, “We eat crustaceans, and insects are related to them. We eat shrimp and lobster, which are similar to grasshoppers, as well as mussels, octopus and shrimp.”

The Spanish entomologist, who is also a professor in the zoology department at the University of Alicante, added that there are insects that have been part of our daily lives for years, although we are often not aware of it. This is the case, for example, with the cochineal, an insect used to produce the natural, deep-red dye known as carmine. It is commonly used in a wide range of food products as well as cosmetics, particularly lipstick, and is sometimes labelled as E120.

Galante said that he has eaten “all kinds of insects, some of which were very delicious,” although he recognises the aversion provoked by the idea in most European cultures.

He does not believe that the use of insects as a food source will help to end world hunger, but he does consider it “a way of opening up new markets.”

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Toasted grasshoppers on sale in the Benito Juárez market in the capital of Oaxaca state, Mexico. Credit: Nsaum75 CC BY-SA 3.0

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 22 2013 (IPS)

The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s recommendation to consider using edible insects as a food source to combat hunger may have particular repercussions in Colombia and Mexico, two Latin American countries that have a tradition of eating insects and a high degree of biodiversity.

Mexico has 300 edible insect species, according to a study published in May by the entomology department of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), titled “Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security”.

But local researchers have identified more than 500 species in the centre, south and southeast of Mexico, a mega-biodiverse country with a poverty rate of 47 percent.

“Insects are a viable, cheap source of high quality food that could be even better than the packaged foods that are consumed at present,” researcher Julieta Ramos-Elorduy, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Biology Institute, told IPS.

In her view, “This country is ready for mass consumption of insects, but people need education about techniques and ways of marketing them. Protecting them is not a concern. There are no official measures,” said the expert, who has been carrying out research since the 1970s on the benefits of insects, and has reported 549 edible species.

The issue acquires an environmental dimension, particularly on International Day for Biological Diversity, celebrated this Wednesday May 22.

Eating insects or entomophagy is an indigenous tradition in Mexico, attested to by the Florentine Codex, written by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) who described the consumption of 96 species.

Some insects provide up to three times more protein, weight for weight, than beef, and their nutrient concentrations are surpassed only by fish, according to the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO).

The Mexican insect menu is made up of blood-sucking bugs, worms, beetles, butterflies, ant and fly larvae, bees, wasps and “chapulin” grasshoppers. They can be grilled, fried or served with different kinds of sauces.

In recent decades, several of these delicacies have vaulted from kitchens in poor rural homes to tables in fancy restaurants.

In Mitla, a town close to a Zapotec archaeological site of the same name in the southern state of Oaxaca, a small business uses moth larvae (Hypopta agavis) that feed on American aloe leaves to make a hot spicy salt to accompany mescal, an alcoholic drink distilled from the same aloe plant.

“We follow a homemade recipe. Grinding is done by hand and we use a hand mixer. We also package by hand,” Diana Corona, the commercial manager of the firm Gran Mitla which produces 300 kilograms of “sal de gusano” (larva salt) a month, told IPS.

It takes 300 grams of ground larvae, 300 grams of dry chili peppers and 400 grams of salt to produce one kilo.

The larvae or worms are collected from August to October and frozen to ensure continuous production, as from November to the following May harvesting is banned throughout the country.

The FAO publication says that more than 1,900 species are part of the traditional diets of at least two billion people worldwide. The favourites are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets.

Collecting and farming insects could create jobs and income, and could have industrial-scale potential, the authors say.

“That could be achieved if the insects are farmed and marketed in large quantities. But producers need to be aware that their resources are being depleted,” said Ramos-Elorduy, who is investigating the productivity of insect species that feed on maize and pumpkin, and seeking ways of increasing it.

“Collecting techniques are the same everywhere, but there is no legislation stipulating proper techniques. People do not know what they are. Besides, wages are very low,” she said.

In their research paper “Edible insects in some locations in Central Region of Mexico State: Collection techniques, sale and preparation”, Ramos-Elorduy, Andrés Juárez and José Manuel Pino warn that “this valuable food resource is in danger of disappearing, due to a variety of environmental and socio-economic problems.”

The paper, published in December, concludes that “impacts on the environment, cultural change and changes in land use are causing the consumption of insects to decrease, especially among young people.”

Corona, of Gran Mitla, agreed that measures should be taken to protect these species. “Regulations are needed for collection and marketing. Insects are part of the Mexican diet and the resource must be protected,” she said.

For the same reason, many collectors are reluctant to talk about where they find their insects and grubs, and how they capture or harvest them.

The FAO report recommends automated infrastructure and regulatory frameworks to ensure stable, reliable and safe production. It also stresses that insect biomass could be used as the raw material for animal feed.

In Colombia, a snack available from street stalls is the crunchy “hormiga culona” (Atta laevigata), a leafcutter ant species, sold toasted and salted. The origin of this and other dishes is native culture.

But “going into the rainforest for large-scale extraction of insects is a touchy issue, because they are found in wildlife habitats,” Colombian biologist and regional planner Jaime Bernal Hadad told IPS.

Colombia has a poverty rate of 33 percent, and it is the second most mega-biodiverse country on the planet, after Brazil.

“In tropical ecosystems, although there is a great diversity of species, there are only relatively few individuals per species,” said Bernal Hadad. “Large-scale extraction could lead to the extinction of species, or create environmental imbalances.

“Beetles on fallen trees in the forest help decomposition and the balance of those forests,” he said. “Wasps and bees have an important role in pollination. And while there are native groups who eat beetles and prize them highly, they are minority groups and do not create problems.”

In Bernal Hadad’s view, farming insects “is an interesting option. But other factors come into play, such as the issue of cultural acceptability and consumption.

“Of course, in Europe it may be regarded as exotic, but if we consider marginalised populations in Latin America, the issue is very different,” he said.

The fight against hunger “cannot ignore structural issues,” he said. Moreover, “it is worth asking whether the proposal could be controlled or if it would become another method of interfering with conservation, not as a result of ranching and the timber industry, but because of insects,” he said. “Then we would continue to reproduce the destruction of natural systems, without real solutions.”

With additional reporting from Helda Martínez in Bogotá.