FAO expert meeting on Insect as Animal Feed held in Brussels

The FAO Expert meeting on Insect as Animal Feed took place at the FAO Liaison Office in Brussels. The meeting was attended by experts and resource partners, academics and private sector representatives.

Participants addressed the importance of insects as animal feed source; exchanging on the related benefits and challenges; and indicating data and research gaps. Experts also provided guidance on good practice for production and use.

Sustainability, high nutritional value, local availability, promotions of circular bio-economy and contribution to the reduction of antimicrobials and animal welfare requirements in livestock are all benefits of using insect products as animal feed.

Current challenges that were discussed include: high costs in certain production systems, legislative frameworks limiting the use in some countries, high differentiation and low consistency of the products, high investments needed for large-scale production facilities, limited access to industrial insect-rearing technology, food/feed/bio safety, insect health and welfare as well as occupational health.

FAO will gather additional information and inputs from experts and stakeholders and publish the results in a report in 2023.

The expert meeting was preceded by the annual conference of the International Platform of Insects for Food and feed (IPIFF) titled ‘Shaping European Food Systems: How insect farming is contributing to the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy targets’ that took place in Brussels, on 16 November 2022.

You can read more about FAO’s work on Animal production and health here.