Insects as a feed ingredient for fish culture: Status and trends

Abstract

Fish culture plays an important role in supplying high-quality proteins and omega-3 (n-3) long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. Aquaculture has been the fastest growing sector in agriculture. Fishmeal is an important component of commercial fish feeds, but ensuring a sustainable supply of fishmeal is in question. A good source of proteins in aquafeeds is insects. For the past 20 years, investigations have been carried out on insect meals as alternative sources for fishmeal. Thus far, the results on replacing fishmeal in feeding aquaculture species have been promising. However, some challenging issues including costs and scaling up of insect production remains. In this review, we aim to summarize the status of applying meals of eight insect species in formulated aquafeeds. We also discussed issues in replacing fishmeal in fish feeds with insect meals and listed some future research directions to make insect meals an important source of proteins for green, profitable and sustainable (GPS) aquaculture. It is certain that in the near future, large-scale insect farming and processing to produce insect meals as an ingredient of fish feeds will have positive impact on the sustainability and profitability of aquaculture.