Sustainability Webinar | Sustainable Insect Farming: Feed the Future
Welcome from the Chair
9th Sustainability Webinar
Sustainable Insect Farming: Feed the Future
The utilization of insects for food and feed has been long regarded as a viable sustainable option over the use of traditional food and feed sources. Nevertheless, this sector has been remarkably developed during the recent years, especially after 2017, when the EU authorized the inclusion of certain insect species in aquafeeds, while four years later, insects were authorized as feed ingredients for poultry and swine, and also for human consumption.
Apparently, these developments notably increased the scientific activities towards this direction, but, most importantly, has caused a remarkable increase in the establishment of an insect production industry, in several parts of the world. Currently, there are hundreds of companies that produce insects of insect- related substances, that have been commercialized and adopted for an extremely large variety of uses, that go far beyond feed and food. This industry is expected to grow further in the next few years, providing several insect-related products. Nevertheless, the utilization of insects for this purpose needs to be further investigated on the basis of its cost-effectiveness, but also for its effects on animal growth and food safety and security.
This webinar aims in providing some of the latest developments in the utilization of insects for food and feed, underlining their sustainability potential not only for food and feed, but also for their use in agriculture and waste management.
Date: 3 May 2022
Time: 5:00 pm CEST | 11:00 am EDT | 11:00 pm CST Asia
Webinar ID: 844 1565 9442
Webinar Secretariat: sustainability.webinar@mdpi.com
Chair
Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology, Department of Agriculture, Crop Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, Greece
Christos Athanassiou is a Professor of Entomology, at the University of Thessaly, Greece, since 2010. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1999, he worked in different research institutes in US and Europe. His research is focused on insect biology and detection, and implementation strategies of chemical and non-chemical control in pest management programs for field, stored-product and forest pests, but also on edible insects Prof. Athanassiou has published over 350 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals, and has participated in the development of several products that are now commercially available. Since 2014. He serves as the Editor in Chief of different international peer-reviewed journals, and also as in expert in different international organizations, such as FAO, UN, USAID, IAEA etc. He is a coordinator, PI, co-PI, collaborator etc. in numerous projects that are funded by different funding bodies, and has received awards by various organizations, such as the Fulbright Foundation, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Institute for International Education (IIE/OLF), etc.
Invited Speakers
Dr. Sergiy M. Smetana works as a Head of Food Data Group at the German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL e.V.) since 2017. However, he joined the institute in 2013 and was responsible for sustainability assessment of food and food technologies. Before that he worked as a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in Brook Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA) for a year and 6 years as a Leading Engineer in Institute of Nature Management and Environmental Problems (Ukraine). The main focus of his research is sustainability assessment of innovative food processing technologies, alternative protein sources and data analysis of complex food systems.
Dipl. Chem.-Biol. János-István Petrusán is Senior Project Manager for EU-Programmes. He is food chemist and works at within the Networks-Department of the German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL e.V.) since 2019, and as a project manager and senior researcher. He accumulated a broad experience starting from FP6, FP7, ERA-Net Framework Programmes, and continuing with PRIMA, H2020 and Horizon Europe project scientific/technical/financial management, but also being active in new product optimization, evaluation, characterization and technological transfer procedures. He coordinated FOODSCAN (FP7-SME) and ProVegFlake (H2020-SME-INST). He is currently responsible for technical and scientific support for project-proposal elaboration, fundraising and project implementation procedures, including PMI-conform project management, dully adhered to standard protocols.
Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology, Department of Agriculture, Crop Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, Greece
Christos Rumbos holds a PhD in Agricultural Sciences (2005) and is currently Post-doc researcher in the Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology of University of Thessaly. He has worked with different aspects of crop production and protection, i.e. insects, fungi and nematodes. During the last 7 years he has been working exclusively on the exploitation and mass production of insects as food and feed. He is the author of more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed international journals (h-index=14) and two book chapters. He has actively participated as researcher in the implementation of many national and international research projects.
USDA Agricultural Research Service, Center for Grain and Animal Health Research, Manhattan, KS, USA
Brenda Oppert is a Research Molecular Biologist at the USDA ARS laboratory in Manhattan, KS, since 1991. After her Ph.D. in 1991, she began work as a postdoctoral research associate for the ARS and was hired as a research scientist in 1995 working primarily in the control of stored product insects. Her research originally focused on insect gut biochemistry and toxin mode of action, but in 2007 she began working in the area of insect functional genomics. In 2015, she collaborated with All Things Bugs LLC in a US Department of Defense DARPA-funded project to develop genetic resources for insects as food. Dr. Oppert has published over 120 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, recently publishing the first reference genome for an insect from the Bostrichidae family, with reference genomes for mealworm and cricket species in progress. She also uses transcriptome sequencing to examine gene expression during different developmental stages, and to identify potential pathogens in insect colonies. Dr. Oppert is a team member of the USDA Grand Challenges Synergies program to develop insect meal for poultry and aquaculture. She also is a member of the ARSx team project to capture field pests and incorporate into animal feed. Her research focuses on using genetics to optimize insects for specific food applications.
Laboratory of Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Ilias Giannenas, DVM (2000), PhD (2004), DipECPVS (2014), Director of Laboratory of Nutrition (2018), is a veterinarian and assistant Professor at the Veterinary Faculty of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2018). Formerly he served as Lecturer in the Veterinary Faculty of University of Thessaly (2006-2011) and in AUTH (2012-2018). In 2017, he did sabbatical studies in Newcaste University for 3 months to study further on the interaction between dietary fibre, diet dilution and the effects on coccidiosis outcome in broiler chickens. He is particularly interested in issues of applied poultry nutrition, the use of aromatic plants, plant extracts and essential oils as alternative growth promoters or natural anticoccidials. He is co-author of 3 books, 12 book chapters and over 66 papers in refereed journals. He has been several times an invited speaker in national or international Congresses or Conferences and he has presented more than 100 Conference papers. He has been scientific responsible or member of the research group in more than 30 research projects and has established collaboration with the feed industry and companies developing feed additives. He served as reviewer in several journals, member of the editorial board in 5 international journals and evaluator for several international projects. His work has more than 2000 citations and an h index of 26.
David Deruytter dedicates his professional life to research for insects for food and feed at the Insect Research Centre of Inagro. IRC research is focused on the production of insects for food and feed with special emphasis on Tenebrio molitor and Hermetia illucens. The research topics include, but are not restricted to, optimization of breeding, feed, climate, genes, etc. in terms of product quality and economic efficiency. Besides improvements on the rearing of insects, IRC tries to improve the overall research quality via standardized feed experiments and improving the statistics.
Webinar Content
Program
|
Speaker/Presentation |
Time in CEST |
|
Prof. Dr. Christos Athanassiou Welcome and Introduction |
5:00 - 5:05 pm |
|
Dr. Sergiy Smetana & Mr. János-István Petrusán Insect Farming and Its Environmental Footprint |
5:05 - 5:20 pm |
|
Dr. Christos Rumbos Using Agricultural By-Products in Insect Farming |
5:20 - 5:35 pm |
|
Dr. Brenda Oppert Genetics of Insects for Food and Feed, and Practical Utilization |
5:35 - 5:50 pm |
|
Dr. Ilias Giannenas Lessons Learned From Feeding Trials |
5:50 - 6:05 pm |
|
Dr. David Derytter Insect Farming in Large Scale: Quo Vadis? |
6:05 - 6:20 pm |
|
Q&A Session |
6:20 - 6:40 pm |
|
Prof. Dr. Christos Athanassiou Conclusion Remarks |
6:40 - 6:45 pm |
Relevant SI
Guest Editors: Dr. Christos I. Rumbos, Dr. David Deruytter, Mr. János-István Petrusán & Prof. Dr. Christos G. Athanassiou
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2022
Sponsors and Partners
Organizers
