Insects in food and feed systems in sub-Saharan Africa: the untapped potentials

Advances in insects for food and feed

“…The promotion of insect consumption should consider aspects such as familiarity with specific edible insects among potential consumers. Babarinde et al (2020) confirmed similar findings in Nigeria, where the consumption of insects remains unpopular among urban dwellers, particularly among the elites, unlike rural dwellers who embrace entomophagy. Ibitoye et al (2020) reported a similar trend in the Oyo state in Nigeria, where indigenous edible species were most preferred, with insect consumption declining among the youth.…”

“…The authors highly recommend scaling up this new trapping technology as a replacement to the traditional harvesting method. Babarinde et al (2020) stressed the scarcity of successful large-scale edible insect farms in Africa, despite the vast biodiversity of species, favourable atmospheric conditions, and abundance of potential insect feed in the continent. The authors suggest intensified empirical investigation of the ecological impact of insect farming, economics, species biology, and processing aspects to guide potential insect producers and processors.…”

Python farming in Zimbabwe: Assessing local appetite for a novel agricultural system

“…Approaches to livelihood security are often similar, and the universal success of small-scale poultry and aquaculture are well documented (Wong et al, 2017;Kumar et al, 2018). Similar trends have emerged more recently with insect farming (Durst and Hanboonsong, 2015;Babarinde et al, 2020). Technology transfer between Africa and Asia is an important catalyst for commercial success, because novel, small-scale systems designed for tropical landscapes often solicit minimal interest or investment from western agribusiness (Kumar et al, 2018;Otsuka and Sugihara, 2019).…”

Brain food: rethinking food-borne toxocariasis

“…Whilst this situation is probably extremely rare, one must bear in mind that contamination of vegetables with common invertebrates such as these does occur and could pose a risk to consumers if produce is consumed unwashed. Cases of zoonotic disease from accidental ingestion of molluscs infected with nematodes such as Angiostrongylus cantonensis (Slom et al, 2002) attest to this possibility, while the possible growth of insects as human food in future (Babarinde et al, 2020;Hawkey et al, 2021) demands consideration of their potential as sources of zoonoses, including Toxocara. Insects are known to transfer taeniid cestode eggs from feces to food (Benelli et al, 2021), although this route has not yet been demonstrated for Toxocara spp.…”