By consuming four times their own weight in organic garbage, these little warriors can convert it into sustainable fertilizer.
One tiny but powerful insect is turning into a weapon to combat the expanding issues of organic waste and soil degradation because of its exceptional capacity to eat almost any type of organic materials it encounters. Food waste is converted into frass, a nutrient-rich biofertilizer, by the insect known as black soldier fly larvae (BSFL). Although farmers have historically utilized insects as food, they are also investigating the possibility of using bug feces as an environmentally friendly fertilizer. Frass can play a significant role in restoring soil biodiversity and quality, as more than 33% of the world’s soil is currently deteriorated and lacking in minerals essential for healthy plant growth.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) granted money to three studies in May 2024 to explore the potential of this soldier fly. Among them was Chapul Farms, a project development firm based in Oregon that is reintroducing insects into American agriculture in an effort to reduce food waste, improve soil quality, and create premium animal feed.
The bipartisan support for using insects in agriculture, which is backed by the Fertilizer Production and Expansion Program (FPEP), demonstrates the increasing awareness of BSFL’s ability to improve soil health by producing high-quality domestic fertilizer and to reduce waste.
However, despite the bug’s apparent superpowers, BSFL is still not widely used. Why is the question? And how can businesses like Chapul Farms, who now have federal assistance, alter that?
Almost any type of organic waste, including food scraps and agricultural leftovers, can be consumed by BSFL. With the larvae devouring up to four times their own body waste in organic materials each day, facilities such as Chapul Farms use its ravenous appetite to handle massive amounts of garbage. Compared to traditional composting, which can take up to 10 months, this process is completed in a tenth of the time. Because of their efficiency, the larvae may quickly convert organic material into frass, which is nutrient-rich waste.
“They can reproduce pretty quickly too,” says Shankar Ganapathi Shanmugam, an assistant research professor at Mississippi State University’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. “And it [BSFL] grows on dead and decaying material, which means that it can survive on waste.”
Research on the use of frass as a crop fertilizer, which has not yet been investigated in the US but has been in other regions of the world, particularly several European nations, is being led by Shanmugam.
Chapul works with nearby farmers to establish a circular system by trading trash for frass. As Chapul gets the fuel for their operations and the farmers get nutrient-rich soil amendment, it’s a win-win situation. Additionally, it has a major impact on insect populations:
This is due to the fact that insect farming enterprises provide a regulated environment in which the bugs can flourish. The frass made from them gives plants vital nutrients and makes the soil more biodiverse, which promotes the growth of native plant and insect species and supports the ecosystem as a whole. Mimi Casteel, a wine grower from Oregon who has been using Chapul’s frass, says, “We could make compost out of anything but the impact of running it through this insect biology has all of these [positive] implications.” “It’s exciting for so many reasons: it’s a portable, pretty low cost investment compared to some other things that we’re considering as part of dealing with our massive problems with waste, and soldier flies are replacing a missing layer of diversity.”
Chapul has collaborated with nearby farmers, researchers, and vineyards to study, inform, and encourage the adoption and advantages of frass in the bioregion. Chapul receives laboratory space and farmland for their study from TAINABLE, a local non-profit organization dedicated to soil restoration.
More effective and sustainable processing techniques are becoming more and more necessary as the generation of organic waste continues to place a significant load on energy and carbon emissions. Additionally, the digestion processes of BSFL can drastically lower carbon gas emissions.
“Finding a use for this is important, but if you’re going to market frass as a fertiliser, you need to regulate it, which takes time,” states Shanmugam. “And to make these regulations you need research.”
Insects are currently not permitted as an addition under the US National Organic Program. Sharing this technology with farmers who utilize organic procedures is difficult because of this, but organizations like Chapul Farms are negotiating with authorities to raise awareness of it and promote its inclusion.
By adding a varied microbial community, frass enhances soil biodiversity in contrast to artificial fertilizers, which frequently degrade soil over time. This increases soil resilience, strengthens natural plant defenses, increases water retention, and lessens the need for expensive synthetic inputs. Conversely, synthetics have the potential to destroy beneficial microorganisms, soil biodiversity, and the soil’s natural micro-ecosystem, making it more reliant on costly inputs. They also lower the soil’s capacity to carry carbon and have high demands on fossil fuels.
Aly Moore, the Chief Communications Officer at Chapul Farms, states, “We recently saw even more of a push for our government to get projects funded that support domestic fertiliser production.” “We are aware of the numerous health problems brought on by the decreased nutrient density of crops and the numerous pesticides utilized. In terms of expenses, farmers will eventually require fewer pesticides in addition to less fertilizer.
The microbes in frass proliferate over time, rebuilding soil health
All of this can lower costs and increase farmers’ incentives, particularly during a period when fertilizer prices are extremely high and supply is unpredictable. Between 2021 and 2022, prices more than doubled. American farmers were disproportionately affected because the US is the third-largest importer of fertilizer worldwide, therefore the issue is not simply one of fertilizer but also one of food security.
Michael Place, Chief Technology Officer at Chapul Farms, states that “people were priced out of the market, resulting in an 8% reduction in global fertilizer consumption in the two years leading up to 2023.” “Supply interruptions and even outages occurred. And this kind of emergency gave rise to FPEP.
Although less than 1% of all soil microbes have been cultured, soil microbes offer an intriguing new frontier for restoring soil health. Frass offers a chance to improve food and agricultural security while reversing the reductionist approaches to soil treatment that initially caused the soil crisis.
As the bacteria in frass multiply over time, restoring soil health and resilience by enhancing biodiversity, farmers will eventually require less frass to maintain the same levels of soil productivity.
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Promising outcomes are already being reported by farmers who have started utilizing frass in their fields. Casteel is currently doing research to see how frass affects her crops. She has already noticed noticeable changes, even if the study’s statistical results are still being finalized.
“Anecdotally, what I can tell you is that in the trials that I’ve done both with grapevines and in my vegetable farm, the produce itself comes up faster, it has better cellular structure,” Casteel explains.
“The cells grow denser and have larger lipid membranes if you really cut the leaf and examine it under a microscope. Therefore, the facility has more structural integrity from day one,” she explains.
The FPEP money will be used to build and equip BSFL facilities in North Dakota and Oregon. When the project opens, which is anticipated to happen in 2026, it will create 59 new jobs and produce 10,000 tons of frass annually each location.
The tunnel vision surrounding insects for protein production, which has eclipsed the advantages of frass in soil health, is one of the biggest problems facing the fledgling insect agriculture sector. Frass is still an underutilized resource in insect agriculture, despite the fact that protein from BSFL is a profitable and rapidly expanding market. The global market for insect protein was estimated to be worth about $1 billion (£805 million) in 2022, whereas the global market for frass was estimated to be worth $96 million (£77 million) in 2023. The anticipated increase for frass is significantly higher. Additionally, insect farms generate twice as much frass as larvae, according to the Chapul Farms team.
“I think farmers have historically been convinced that insects are problems, and they just don’t want to talk about adding more problems to their situation,” Casteel adds. “But when our farms become more complex, you start to see an exponential rollout of ecological returns.”
Furthermore, insects are keystone species, which means that without them, entire ecosystems would either significantly shift or collapse. As biologist Dave Goulson put it in the Guardian newspaper, “our world would grind to a halt.”
Pat Crowley, the CEO of Chapul Farms, states that “at its core, we cannot survive without insects.” “Without insects as a component, natural ecosystems cannot thrive. And one of our main tenets is that. It’s not as easy as saying that insects will address the major issues facing agricultural health worldwide. In addition, I believe it’s one of the most powerful tools we have to transform agriculture into an ecosystem-based, more resilient model.