Conversion of organic wastes into fly larval biomass: bottlenecks and challenges

The large volume of organic wastes and by-products produced every year usually generates environmental problems, such as water, air and soil contamination and it can be also a focus for pathogen dispersion. Sustainable waste management strategies should be developed, that can favour the value of the organic waste instead of its disposal. A sustainable strategy would be the use of the organic waste as substrate for intensive production of insect biomass. The insects associated with manure and organic waste can play a key role for the sustainable valorisation of organic waste streams as high add value products as they could be used as feed. This review is an overview of the research related with intensive insect farming of saprophagous dipteran species (flies) on manure and other organic wastes and the by-products obtained after the process. Using dipterans as recyclers of waste means that the mass-production systems of these organisms have to be efficient and competitive with other recycling systems. This review describes the possibilities of the dipterans to become active agents in waste management systems and, at the same time, an important resource of protein for feed and the main aspects and bottlenecks that have to be improved in order to achieve competitive insect farming.