Conservation benefits and threats from insects as food

Insects are a traditional part of human diets in many countries around the world, with this practice now becoming an industry where insects are commercially reared for human and livestock consumption. Most insects eaten by people are harvested from the wild, with non-sustainable practices threatening insect populations. Commercial rearing of insects shows great promise in improving the ecological sustainability of food production. Benefits from insect rearing are the potential for reducing the conversion of natural areas into agricultural land, reducing harvesting pressure on wild insect populations, and helping to promote traditional harvesting practices. However, the commercialisation of insect rearing has potential problems, most notably the risk of accidental release of exotic insects and their pathogens into local insect populations. There are few or no import barriers for transporting insects in most countries, resulting in insects being shipped without knowledge of pathogens they carry, nor risks they might pose to local insect populations. Thus, while many of the benefits and risks posed by insects as food to insect conservation are still speculative, this indicates where insect ecologists and conservation biologists need to become part of the industry’s development, in the context of both wild harvesting and the development of commercial rearing facilities.