Entrepreneurial Potentials of Insect Farming in Nigeria

Abstract

Insects provide a wild variety of uses and benefits ranging from Agriculture to medicine, industries and research. They have been reared for food, feed, silk production and dye making. Recently, a lot attention has been drawn worldwide to the usefulness of insect in the food and feed industry because of their high nutrition contents and environmental sustainability. For these reasons, a lot of insect based entrepreneurs have sprung up in Africa in response to this development, but in Nigeria only few entrepreneurs are interested in engaging in insect farming due to information gap. This research aims to bridge the gap by identifying species of insects that can be farmed, for what purpose they are farmed, potentials embedded in insect product development, and factors affecting edible insect entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Data were sourced by querying many research databases outlets such as science direct, researchgates, google scholar, Ajol and so on. This research identifies palm weevil, crickets, grasshopper and pallid emperor moth as insect that can be farmed with high demand as food in Nigeria. The maggot of housefly and Black soldier fly are recommended for animal feed and silk warm for textile industry. The review recommends that the government should encourage insect entrepreneurs in Nigeria through training and improve extension services.

2023 Annual Trends & Outlook Report (ATOR)

“…Rwanda is following suit, with legal approval and standard development under way (Tanga et al 2021). In West Africa, Nigeria is gradually boosting entrepreneurship across the insect value chain, with several species, including palm weevil, cricket, bee, and black soldier fly, evolving in mass rearing for food and feed production (Ibitoye, Kolejo, and Oyetunji 2019). Ghana currently hosts about nine types of insect in this trajectory, and interest in farming and consumption is high.…”