The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) is a Nairobi-based research institute that elevates the role insects play in the creation of environmentally and socially sustainable food systems across Africa.
Founded in 1970, icipe aims to understand how insects can best be introduced across the food system. They recognize the value of insects in agricultural environments and their potential to be used as a primary ingredient in consumer products.
Abdou Tenkouano, Director General of icipe, sees insects and food as interconnected. “Food is produced in the field,” he tells Food Tank. There, “you have a diversity of living beings, including insects that are part of that production landscape.”
Insects can also broadly assist in the creation of a circular economy—an economic system designed to optimize resources while minimizing waste. They can be used “to recycle organic waste [into fertilizer], mitigate environmental pollution, and produce rich biomass,” Chrysantus Tonga, Senior Scientist and Lead of icipe’s Insects for Food, Feed, and Other Uses Program tells Food Tank.
Insects can help decrease the number of inputs typically expected in food production, Tonga says. He explains that they reduce the time it takes to compost, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and they require very little water for breeding. These traits often make them an ideal protein substitute for soybean, corn, and fishmeal in animal feed.
There is also a growing interest in making insects more present in human diets “due to their high levels of vitamin B12, iron, zinc, fiber, essential amino acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and antioxidants,” researchers say in a study published in the Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition Journal. “Ultimately, insects have the potential to be used as meat substitutes or dietary supplements.”
But despite their many benefits, icipe has found that social stigma makes it difficult for insects to gain acceptance among eaters.
Tonga offers masking—a method of making insects undetectable, by the senses, in consumer products—as a means of overcoming this challenge. “We’ve seen a wide acceptability, when you come up with consumer-friendly, familiar products that are market driven.”
Tenkouano names crickets as an insect-based protein substitute that is “very much in demand” for human food products. He explains that research conducted by icipe’s Insects for Food, Feed, and Other Uses Program finds that “when you transform [insects] into some kind of flour that goes into making biscuits and cakes, they’re more socially acceptable.”
icipe’s work also touches on sustainable pest control practices. The organization seeks to minimize crop damage and the spread of diseases caused by invasive species, while “ensuring that we have natural solutions to prevent them from becoming widespread pests,” says Tenkouano. One example is the organization’s push-pull method, which grows crops alongside plants that are natural pest-repellents and traps them to protect farms against invasive insects, like locusts and the fall armyworm.
icipe is hopeful that their research can help expand the market for insects, create more economic opportunities and establish greater security for sub-Saharan African populations, particularly youth and women.
Time limitations pose one of the greatest threats to icipe’s work addressing challenges as the effects of the climate crisis unfold. As soil continues to degrade and environmental conditions become increasingly harsh, Tonga stresses the responsibility to consider the wellbeing of vulnerable communities in planning, saying “we need urgent solutions, but solutions that are eco-friendly, and developmentally acceptable to everyone.”
But icipe continues to respond: “Being alert, being anticipative, being under some kind of foresight, is really what puts icipe at a competitive advantage compared to many other organizations,” Tenkouano says. Under his leadership, he hopes that insect technology will continue to advance its position within a global dialogue on food system sustainability.
“There are patterns of application being done in Europe from the work being done here in Kenya. So [insect technology] has wide applicability,” Tenkouano tells Food Tank. “If you think of the future of insects as food, this is our international arena.”
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Photo courtesy of Krzysztof Niewolny, Unsplash
