An Exploration on Greenhouse Gas and Ammonia Production by Insect Species Suitable for Animal or Human Consumption

By D. Oonincx, J. Van Itterbeeck, M. Heetkamp, H. van den Brand, J. V. van Loon, A. van Huis. PLoS ONE, 2010

797 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Greenhouse gas (GHG) production, as a cause of climate change, is considered as one of the biggest problems society is currently facing. The livestock sector is one of the large contributors of anthropogenic GHG emissions. Also, large amounts of ammonia (NH3), leading to soil nitrification and acidification, are produced by livestock. Therefore other sources of animal protein, like edible insects, are currently being considered. Methodology/Principal Findings An experiment was conducted to quantify production of carbon dioxide (CO2) and average daily gain (ADG) as a measure of feed conversion efficiency, and to quantify the production of the greenhouse gases methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) as well as NH3 by five insect species of which the first three are considered edible: Tenebrio molitor, Acheta domesticus, Locusta migratoria, Pachnoda marginata, and Blaptica dubia. Large differences were found among the species regarding their production of CO2 and GHGs. The insects in this study had a higher relative growth rate and emitted comparable or lower amounts of GHG than described in literature for pigs and much lower amounts of GHG than cattle. The same was true for CO2 production per kg of metabolic weight and per kg of mass gain. Furthermore, also the production of NH3 by insects was lower than for conventional livestock. Conclusions/Significance This study therefore indicates that insects could serve as a more environmentally friendly alternative for the production of animal protein with respect to GHG and NH3 emissions. The results of this study can be used as basic information to compare the production of insects with conventional livestock by means of a life cycle analysis.

Subfields: Ecology, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8ea5330e4913ccf4b77d1062321f5726945ed580

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Citations in the corpus

Food Wastes as a Potential new Source for Edible Insect Mass Production for Food and Feed: A review (2019, background): “Panchoda marginata Sun beetle Larvae Farming Human food, animal and fish feed [7,56]”
The environmental sustainability of insects as food and feed. A review (2017, background): “However, these levels seem to be lower than for conventional livestock (Oonincx et al. 2010).”
A Review of the Scientific Literature for Optimal Conditions for Mass Rearing Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) (2018, positive): “When suffering from water deprivation, T. molitor larvae ingest less food, and the conversion rate of ingested food into body mass decreases (Murray 1968).”
Willingness to pay for insect-based food: The role of information and carrier (2019, background): “Insects provide food at low environmental cost and contribute positively to livelihoods, compared to conventional livestock system of production (Oonincx et al., 2010; Smetana et al., 2015; Halloran, Roos, Eilenberg, Cerutti, & Bruun, 2016).”
Insect lipid profile: aqueous versus organic solvent-based extraction methods (2014, background): “Insect production is a potential agricultural business because insects have a high nutritional value and their rearing has a low environmental impact (Oonincx et al., 2010; Ramos-Elorduy, 2008; van Huis, 2013).”
Life cycle assessment of cricket farming in north-eastern Thailand (2017, background): “…impacts associated with the production of insects, for example, by quantifying greenhouse gas emissions of five different insect species (Oonincx et al., 2010); conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA) on mealworm production (Oonincx and de Boer, 2012) and industrial production of black…”
Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security (2014, background): “Yet insects deemed viable for human consumption in the Western world include species such as mealworm larvae, crickets and locusts, which compare favourably with pigs and beef cattle in their GHG emissions (they are lower by a factor of about 100) (Oonincx et al., 2010) (Figure 5.”
Edible insects acceptance by belgian consumers: promising attitude for entomophagy development (2014, background): “The main advantage of insect production is the high environmental safety when compared to conventional livestock (Nakagaki and Defoliart 1991; Oonincx et al. 2010).”
Nutritional and sensory quality of edible insects (2016, background): “For example, the large cater-pillar of the moth Gonimbrasia belina called mopani or mopane has a high iron content (31 – 77 mg per 100 g of dry matter) and so does the grasshopper L. migratoria (8 – 20mgper 100 g of dry matter) [34].”