00:04 Thank you.
00:05 So this is important.
00:06 So let us get these worms out of the way
00:10 and back to farming insects.
00:12 What I'm really impressed about is how many small and
00:16 big companies that already exist on the African continent.
00:21 Producing insects for food and feed.
00:24 And
00:25 You might not believe it,
00:28 but
00:28 I have heard that you can even buy ice cream with black soldier fly larvae
00:34 in South Africa now.
00:35 That's how advanced the whole menu of foods
00:39 containing insects is in Africa.
00:43 Yeah,
00:43 thank you very much for raising that point of
00:45 using insect products in ice cream in South Africa.
00:50 IE has also been working in that area as well,
00:52 and this has been the use of oil.
00:55 Insects are a formidable source of oil,
00:58 and so we have developed technology of how to
01:01 harvest this oil from the insects.
01:04 And the inside of this oil has been characterized
01:06 and it shows that it is extremely rich in vitamin
01:09 A,
01:10 vitamin E,
01:11 in omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids,
01:14 as also rich in flavonoids.
01:16 And so this oil can actually be used in bakery products
01:19 as well as in other pharmaceutical
01:23 products or cosmetics as well.
01:26 And so the case of South Africa.
01:27 is not an exceptional case
01:29 because
01:30 you could use this oil to completely
01:33 replace
01:35 household
01:36 oil
01:37 and you still have the same effects
01:39 because we have done this
01:41 in
01:42 developing products like cookies,
01:44 bread,
01:45 using insect oil
01:46 as well as
01:48 any product that you can think of.
01:51 Another benefit of insects product is the chitin,
01:55 which we have successfully extracted from 10 insects,
01:59 including locust.
02:00 And you can clearly see that this chitin has a lot of value,
02:03 and this can be transformed as another value added product
02:06 which can be added into a product like yogurt
02:09 because ECP has clearly shown that
02:11 when you add chitin or chitosan into
02:14 into a yogurt product that contains some probiotic bacteria,
02:19 it actually boosts the growth of this.
02:22 Bacteria
02:23 and in the same manner
02:24 inhibits
02:26 clinical pathogens like
02:29 salmonella typhi
02:31 which we have tested in the lab and in vitro
02:34 and this is a very powerful
02:37 properties that I think we should also keep in mind
02:40 when looking at the benefits of insects.
02:43 Thank you.
02:44 And you have very
02:47 Brilliantly explained to us all the amazing nutrient,
02:51 nutritions and the value
02:53 of
02:54 the locust,
02:56 and
02:56 it's similar to what I have
02:59 read
02:59 for other insects.
03:02 But insects,
03:03 there's more advantages than just
03:06 feeding people directly and mixing it into
03:09 animal feed or feeding animals directly.
03:12 There's also some side stream product.
03:14 If we look at the whole value chain.
03:17 And the whole
03:19 process of producing,
03:21 there is bio-ferttilizers that are being produced.
03:23 Could you talk a little bit about that?
03:25 And then I'd also like to know.
03:28 What you are feeding your insect in a zipper,
03:31 and if you could talk a little bit about
03:34 if you
03:35 feed the insect 1 kg of feed,
03:38 how much protein do you get out
03:40 and how much biofertilizer?
03:43 Do you get in this process?
03:47 Um,
03:49 Yeah,
03:50 thank you very much for um
03:51 um
03:52 the,
03:52 that question.
03:54 Um.
03:55 Yes,
03:56 if we look at
03:58 locust real in particular,
04:01 we actually have established
04:04 well
04:06 designed protocols for mass production of these locusts in huge quantities,
04:11 and we just simply feed them on
04:14 vegetation like whe wheat seedlings
04:17 and sometimes you know just wheat bran,
04:19 which are actually some kind of byproducts.
04:22 And so that helps to,
04:24 you don't need to invest,
04:25 uh,
04:25 you need very little capital investment.
04:28 And also,
04:28 this insect produce large um uh quant uh young ones over time,
04:33 and as such,
04:34 could be a very,
04:35 very important,
04:35 um,
04:36 uh,
04:36 cash flow for our smallholder farmers.
04:39 Now,
04:39 coming to um
04:40 the amount of feed.
04:42 And and the bio fertilizer.
04:45 We have done extensive work on other insects in terms of bio fertilizer
04:49 like the black soldier flies,
04:52 and we have actually
04:54 established
04:56 how efficiently this bi fertilizer can be produced,
04:59 and we have tested on several crops
05:01 like maize,
05:02 which is a fertilizer intensive crop,
05:04 on
05:04 fresh beans,
05:05 on tomatoes,
05:06 and some vegetable
05:07 crops like kales.
05:10 But
05:10 if you come to desert locust residues,
05:14 it is actually very,
05:17 very limited
05:18 because they don't produce that much.
05:20 And as such,
05:21 for you to be able to have enough
05:23 waste from locust to be able
05:26 to meet such a huge demand of organic fertilizer,
05:30 that could be a very,
05:30 very huge challenge.
05:32 But what we've done,
05:33 if we collect this
05:36 residues after the
05:39 from the locust rail system
05:41 and analyze,
05:42 you can clearly see that they do have a very high level of nitrogen,
05:45 phosphorus,
05:46 and potassium.
05:47 And some other nutrients that can help in enhancing
05:52 the soils,
05:53 the soil soil health,
05:54 and improve crop production.
05:57 But as I said,
05:57 with a very limited quantity that you can get,
06:00 this can only be used on a very,
06:01 very little and small scale
06:04 compared to the other insects I talked about like the black soldier fly
06:07 where you can produce tons and tons of the waste.
06:10 Because
06:10 you grow them on organic waste
06:13 and they consume
06:14 60% of the waste and 40% is left,
06:18 which means in every ton
06:19 you could be talking about more than 40
06:22 kg of 40 kgs
06:26 or more of residuals left,
06:28 and that can be used for crop production.
06:31 You said 40 kg?
06:34 If you have 1 ton
06:36 of 100 tons of waste,
06:40 that amount of waste,
06:42 60%,
06:43 is converted by the insects
06:45 into
06:47 biomass,
06:48 while 40% is left.
06:50 That's that's about 400
06:52 kgs
06:53 of residue is left
06:55 that can be transformed to
06:58 ris fertilizer
06:59 for crop production.
07:00 So that's efficient.
07:02 Some other insects are bad.
07:04 For desert locusts,
07:05 the residues are quite
07:07 small
07:08 that cannot be used in such a large scale crop production system
07:12 as expected.
07:14 OK,
07:15 so let's talk a little bit about
07:17 these insects that can produce so many benefits,
07:20 as you mentioned,
07:21 producing jobs,
07:23 livelihoods,
07:25 increasing the food in the market,
07:27 maybe the diversity of the food that is all super nutritious food.
07:32 We can create value chains,
07:35 both for food,
07:36 but also maybe for medicine and for animal feed.
07:41 And then at the same time I can just see all these ships stopping,
07:45 transporting soybean from Latin America,
07:48 from Argentina and to Brill,
07:49 Brazil to the African continent.
07:51 So even the ministers of finance
07:54 and the country's
07:55 hard currency
07:57 are going to be impacted positively
07:59 of expanding.
08:01 Insect production in Africa.
08:03 And honestly,
08:04 the whole thing
08:05 that you can turn it into ice cream,
08:07 I think any child
08:09 will be with you.
08:10 So before we finish here,
08:12 I would just like to ask you.
08:15 Given the strong
08:17 economic,
08:19 environment,
08:19 and nutritional benefit of the insect farming for food and feed,
08:23 what do you see as the barriers nationally
08:26 and internationally
08:28 for the African insect farming really to take off?
08:34 OK,
08:34 um,
08:36 The first
08:38 barrier with
08:39 insect
08:40 large scale production is that most of the aspects in insect production are not
08:45 well automated.
08:47 And so
08:48 compared to other,
08:49 other forms,
08:51 and so
08:52 producing a huge amount of insect that can meet
08:56 the demand is also a challenge.
08:59 Another barrier is
09:02 microbial
09:05 levels
09:06 of this insects,
09:06 if they are not properly handled.
09:08 This can transmit other
09:11 diseases to humans or to
09:13 animals if they are exposed to.
09:16 Then another key barrier is that a lot of these insects
09:19 we have shown that do contain some kind
09:20 of allergens and so can cause allergic reactions,
09:24 especially to people who have been exposed to
09:26 other
09:28 allergic
09:30 sources like crustaceans
09:32 or streams.
09:33 And so sometimes we try to,
09:35 uh,
09:35 most products that have been developed,
09:37 they are actually being labeled
09:39 to indicate that those who
09:40 are exposed to.
09:44 Exposed to some kind of allergic reactions
09:47 to certain food materials should avoid
09:50 eating some of these insects.
09:52 Then another
09:54 barrier is
09:56 the policy and regulations
09:58 that govern the use of insects.
10:00 You see,
10:01 in Africa we are still doing a lot of
10:02 work to make sure we create an enabling environment
10:04 that allows these insects to be used properly for human food and for animal feeds.
10:09 But if you look at the,
10:10 the global levels,
10:11 you find that a lot of countries still have these barriers
10:14 and this phobia for not allowing insects to be used
10:16 comfortably
10:18 in these different um
10:19 um uh
10:20 uh
10:20 uh
10:21 uh
10:23 food sector,
10:23 as well as the food and fit sector.
10:26 So,
10:27 yeah,
10:27 with all this,
10:28 I think it's,
10:29 it's we need to do a lot of sensitization to make sure that
10:33 The policymakers are able to break some of these barriers
10:37 and remove these bottlenecks
10:38 that can hinder the industry from
10:41 actually taking up as expected.
10:44 Thank you.
10:46 This is fascinating.
10:47 I could literally go on for hours with you and I hope when the
10:51 whole COVID crisis is over,
10:52 we'll be able to do that and maybe we could have
10:55 a second episode
10:57 of this V-blog.
10:59 So I just want
11:00 to thank you so much before we finish,
11:02 and then I would like to tell everybody that they should keep an eye out because
11:07 the protein menu is here
11:09 to stay,
11:10 and particularly
11:11 the insect is moving in,
11:12 and there's a number
11:13 of publications out there
11:16 that
11:17 People that are
11:18 interested could look into.
11:21 Thank you very much.
11:22 We'll be in touch.
11:24 Bye now.
11:26 Thank you.
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