http://www.eje.cz and high fecundity. In addition, it is more environmentally friendly and less expensive to rear insects for food.The fi eld cricket, Scapsipedus icipe Hugel and Tanga (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) (Tanga et al., 2018) is edible and could be used to reduce malnutrition at local and global levels. It is a native of Kenya and well adapted to the tropical climate of Africa including Madagascar (Tanga et al., 2018;Magara et al., 2021). This insect is highly nutritional in terms of protein, fat, fi bre, mineral and vitamins (Murugu et al., 2021). As food for humans, this cricket can be fried and eaten as a snack or processed into fl our and still remain highly nutritional. It can also be offered as feed for other insects (Mwale et al., 2022), or as food for livestock, such as pigs (Miech et al., 2017). Like other Gryllidae, S. icipe can feed on a variety of foods including agricultural by products, vegetable materials, commercial food, forage and even weeds (

Commelina species are plant resources full of promise as future food and feed that thrive in diverse ecosystems. They are medicinal plants, leafy vegetables, forage for ruminants, feed for cricket insects, crop protection, and fuel. However, information regarding factors driving Commelina in agro-ecological zones in Western Kenya is lacking. Therefore, we investigated the diversity of Commelina species, the composition of associated weed species as well as environmental and management factors affecting their diversity and distribution based on 22 variables from 12 production sites. In the survey, 115 species belonging to 30 families were recorded of which 11 Commelina species were identified. Among Commelina species, Commelina diffusa and Commelina benghalensis var. benghalensis (non-hybrid variant) had higher relative density. Multiple linear regressions revealed that the environment (exchangeable sodium percentage, magnesium, soil pH, and total nitrogen) and management (agriculture system type) variables exert a stronger effect on the diversity of Commelina species. Detrended Correspondence Analysis detected different ecological conditions for Commelina species and the composition of associated weed species. The forward selection based on Canonical Correspondence Analysis indicated that the distribution of Commelina species responded significantly to soil pH, available phosphorous, total nitrogen, fertility, and crop spacing. Partitioning variation showed the great importance to the environment than management (10.57% versus 5.97%). The low shared variance (environment × management) was −0.4%, indicating that the two factors have a more individualistic than interactive nature. However, the 83.86% that remained unexplained was attributed to stochastic variation or unmeasured variables. This study suggests that the identified five important How to cite this paper: Irakiza,

The utilization of edible insects as food and feed is not a new concept, it is a practice that has been part of the tradition of many communities around the world. They have been primarily used as supplementary food in most African countries. However, there has been a significant decline in the consumption of insects over the years, especially among young people. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the knowledge on entomophagy and the utilization of insects among the youth. The study revealed that the majority of youth had limited knowledge about consumption, nutrition, harvesting, preparation and use of edible insects as livestock feed. From the Chi-square analysis it was observed that age and education level have a significant relationship to the familiarity of consumption of edible insects, P=0.014 and P=0.009 respectively. The results also show that there is a significant association between awareness on the nutritional value of insects with age and education level, P=0.001 and P=0.009 respectively. Logistic regression analysis was used to find the association between demographic characteristics, knowledge and the utilization of edible insects. The results revealed that education level, age and knowledge have an impact on the utilization of edible insects. Lack of knowledge contribute to the unwillingness of youth to consume insects. It is noticeable that indigenous knowledge on entomophagy is slowly disappearing with the shift in eating habits and changes in the socio-economic environments. As such, it is imperative that indigenous knowledge is preserved and educational interventions are done to raise awareness on the benefits of entomophagy in order to improve the utilization of insects among the youth.