Increasing the Sustainability of Aquaculture Systems: Insects as Alternative Protein Source for Fish Diets

While aquaculture has a huge potential to contribute to the food security of our planet in the upcoming decades, it is still associated with various environmental concerns. The use of insects as a sustainable protein component in aquafeeds might change that.

The fast growth of the aquaculture sector worldwide increases the demand for aquafeeds. Since the production of conventional protein sources like fish meal is stagnating due to fully exploited fish stocks, far-reaching sustainable adaptions of production techniques as well as new alternative protein sources have to be identified. A first step could be the production of omnivorous freshwater species with more modest feed requirements instead of carnivorous marine species. A next step could be the substitution of marine aquafeed ingredients. The popular practice to substitute fish meal by plant proteins is, however, problematic from a nutritive physiological point of view. Moreover, feed crop production, for example, soybeans, has negative effects on land use and water consumption. Novel protein sources of animal origin are insect meals that combine a high nutritional value with small environmental impact production systems.