FOOD: Maggots to the rescue?
The humble maggot (larva of a fly) is being nurtured as an alternative protein source for livestock and fish farming feed, and could eventually reduce global reliance on the multi-billion dollar fishmeal industry.
Common household flies with its larva
A South African-based entrepreneur and his environmentalist brother have established a small pilot plant near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, that will be up scaled next year into a trial plant converting millions of the grubs into one and half tons of a rich protein powder per day to supplement commercial livestock and fish diets.
According to its website, Agriprotein Technologies is pioneering the industrialization of maggot farming as part of a “new industry called nutrient recycling: using organic waste to create protein” the core of which is a “protein-based feed [derived from maggots] for monogastric [single stomach] animals…. varying neither in protein content nor amino acid composition.”
The fishmeal industry predominantly catches small pelagic fish, which are processed into a highly nutritious powder that is one of the mainstays of commercial animal and fish food production, although opinion remains divided as to the impact the industry has on ocean resources.
Fishmeal as a protein powder is currently unrivalled. While vegetable proteins such as soya and sunflower are also used as supplements, they are less efficient.
The UK’s Sea Fish Industry Authority (SFIA), established in 1981 to assist in supporting a sustainable fisheries industry, said in its October 2011 factsheet that global production in the world’s 300 fishmeal plants “has been around 5 million tonnes of fishmeal over the last four years… This is all produced from about 20 million tonnes of whole fish and trimmings.” Trimmings comprise about a quarter of the content (and about one million tons of fish oil is also produced from the total).
The ratio of fishmeal in farm animal diet varies from 1-5 percent, while “a typical farmed salmon diet contains 20-30 percent fishmeal and 15-20 percent fish oil,” the factsheet says.
Agriprotein’s managing director David Drew told IRIN that with world population expected to increase from seven to nine billion by 2050, a growing middle class demanding a greater meat and fish diet, and increasing competition for land for food and biofuel, it was necessary to find a source of protein for fish farming and livestock rearing which did not rely on marine resources.
Source: IRIN
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