Fighting Malnutrition and Poor Residue Management with the Use of a Wonderful Insect: Hermetia illucens (L.)

Perspectives in Global Development: Fall 2022 Seminar Series

Honduras is one of the five Latin-American countries with the highest malnutrition rate in Latin America. In some rural towns, more than half of the children from 6-60 months are below the height for their age and about a third are underweight. Access to cheap protein is frequently the biggest reason for this. Insect protein incorporated in the diet of farm animals can help to alleviate this problem. The Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) is a native insect that can be reared with kitchen scraps and other waste frequently not taken advantage of. The high protein larva can be used to feed animals, saving money on animal feed, and allowing more protein on the human diet. BSF larva also are a powerful decomposer helping with the reduction of contaminants and vectors of several diseases. Additionally, as a byproduct of the decomposition process by the larva, a high nitrogen fertilizer that can be used in the crops is produced.

About the speaker

Jesus was born in Colombia and after getting his BSc in Biology he moved to the US to do his graduate studies. He obtained his doctorate in Entomology from the University of Nebraska in 2011. Afterwards he moved to South Africa where he did a postdoc in molecular phylogenetics and later worked for a year in the Usambara Mointains in Tanzania. Jesus is the curator of the Insect Collection at Zamorano University in Honduras since 2015. He is mostly interested in taxonomy but in the last years he has been working on protein production and decomposition of residues through Hermetia illucens, the black soldier fly.

About the seminar series

The Perspectives in Global Development seminars are held Wednesdays from 12:25 – 1:15 p.m. eastern time during the semester. The series will be presented in a hybrid format with some speakers on campus and others appearing via Zoom. All seminars are shown in Warren 151. Students, faculty and the general public are welcome to attend. The series is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the School of Integrative Plant Science as part of courses GDEV 4961, AEM 4961, NTRES 4961, GDEV 6960, AEM 6960, and NTRES 6960.