Harvesting Agriculture’s “Natural” Insect Farms: ARSX 2021 Winning Project
ARSX is an internal competition to USDA Agricultural Research Service employees and awards $100,000 to winning teams with compelling research ideas. Among the three winners of this year’s ARSX challenge seeking for bold, transformative ideas to “Harvest for a Healthier Future” is a project titled Harvesting Agriculture’s “Natural” Insect Farms led by Alexandra Chaskopoulou, medical entomologist for the European Biological Control Laboratory (EBCL) in Thessaloniki, Greece.
This project brought together a very diverse team of researchers from across the world:
- Lee Cohnstaedt, ARS research epidemiologist from the Arthropod-borne Animal Diseases Research Unit in Manhattan, Kansas
- Brenda Oppert, ARS research molecular biologist from the Stored Product Insect and Engineering Research Unit in Manhattan, Kansas
- Anne Donoghue, ARS research leader and poultry production expert from the Poultry Production and Product Safety Research Unit in Fayetteville, Arkansas
- Komala Arsi, Director of the Experiment Station and food safety expert from University of Arkansas from Fayetteville, Arkansas
- Kiki Zinoviadou, food scientist from American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece
The proposed project addresses two major agricultural problems by transforming one problem into a solution:
- Large-scale livestock production is a significant contributor to climate change globally with animal feed production being one of the major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There is a critical need for alternative feed sources with low environmental impact.
- Vector-borne diseases — those transmitted to people and animals by insect vectors — result in hundreds of thousands of cases annually and economic losses exceeding $100 billion a year. Environmental and ecological changes induced by agriculture often result in the production of massive vector populations. Sustainable, insecticide free management solutions that do minimal damage to the environment are required.
The proposed solution is to harvest nuisance and pathogen-transmitting insects such as mosquitoes and house flies utilizing an ARS mass trapping device directly from agricultural landscapes, where these pestiferous insects are produced in massive numbers including rice-fields and intensive cattle and poultry production areas. The adoption of such a practice shall contribute to a more sustainable feed production with fewer GHG emissions while reducing nuisance and disease transmitting insect populations.
The implementation of this proposal will significantly expand our knowledge on the nutritional value and safety of harvested insect pests and lay the groundwork for incorporating this new feed system in the currently available animal feed supply chain.
Contact: Alexandra Chaskopoulou
