Livestock feed containing insect products is currently relatively expensive compared to conventional feed, as insects are currently mainly processed in pet food and fish feed. In these two markets a higher margin can be achieved and consumers are willing to pay higher prices than livestock farmers can afford. Christiaan Buitink, ForFarmers poultry product manager and nutritionist, said legislation is still a problem:

“Insects are now equal to pigs, chickens and cows by law. As a result, you are only allowed to feed them certain raw materials that are also suitable for these other animals. Many residual streams that could be suitable as insect food do not qualify as such.”

Dr Pattanapong Tiwasing, researcher at Scotland’s Rural College, is calling on the UK’s Food Standards Agency to urgently introduce a new “UK-specific transitional measure” to allow the insect sector to survive in the country. Pattanapong, who comes from Thailand, where eating insects as a snack is commonplace, said:

“The introduction of new and evolving EU regulations to edible insect products has muddled the waters, leading to confusing procedures for those looking to trade and export edible insects. This has been particularly impactful following Brexit because it means there are currently no regulations for the edible insect (for human consumption) industry, and it is therefore illegal to sell insects for human consumption in the UK. Policymakers need to take urgent action in order for the insect industry to survive in Europe and the UK,” said the researcher.

Audio analytics, sensors and other new tools assess bird behaviour and vocalizations to provide early warning of potential problems related to broiler health and welfare, explained Tom Darbonne, CEO at AudioT Inc. at the International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta, Georgia, about AudioT’s technology.

The use of sounds to monitor the health and welfare of broilers is nothing new, it’s just that in the old days, farmers had to sit in the barn and listen. Audio-based assessments help automate this process. “It’s not an entire solution, but it’s a part of the solution,” added Darbonne. “The two technologies that track behaviour really well are visual and auditory.” The system uses a combination of acoustic signal processing techniques and machine learning to track and analyse sounds heard in poultry houses.

When an unusual event (e.g. coughs) or an anomaly (e.g. dry auger or fan motor failure) occurs, farmers are alerted. Darbonne said that in addition to assessing behaviour, welfare and health, the audio technology can also detect potential environmental issues, including feed shortages, disruption to sleep cycles, instances when water pressure in the lines are too low, when ventilator fans are about to fail and other unseen or otherwise undetectable issues.

In some countries, vaccination is the most commonly used strategy to control avian influenza. However, the majority of vaccination programmes against the H9N2 avian influenza subtype have proven ineffective against infection and transmission in the field, although these vaccines were reported to work well in laboratory in specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens.

The reason for this, according to a press release from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, is that maternal-derived antibodies (MDAs) can interfere with the immune response of chickens to vaccination, which are passed on to the unborn chicks through the egg. The presence of MDAs may be one of the reasons why most vaccination programmes against avian influenza have proven ineffective in poultry in practice. This is one of the conclusions of the research on the low pathogenicity H9N2 avian influenza virus currently prevalent in China, which was the subject of Xue Pan’s PhD thesis at Wageningen University & Research.

“Our results highlight that we need to pay more attention to MDA interference of avian influenza virus vaccines in the field, rather than just looking at antigenic distance,” said Pan, adding, “It is important to develop new vaccines to overcome MDA interference in the field.” During his research, Pan has come up with some new vaccines, such as a new adjuvant for the conventional H9N2 inactivated vaccine and turkey herpesvirus vector vaccine to improve the efficacy of the vaccines. Pan has also identified several mechanisms that influence vaccine efficacy.