Insect journal to co-operate with EAAP

Last August, at their annual meeting in Belfast, UK, the EAAP announced a new Study Commission on Insects. This Commission will address all questions concerning biomass as substrate for insect rearing, nutritional requirements of insects, insect production, processing methods of insect products, feeding value of insects (products) in animal feed, functional properties of insect products in animal feed, market applications, regulatory issues, consumer acceptance, environmental and socio-economic sustainability.

These topics fit perfectly within the scope of JIFF, the online scientific peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles looking at the multitude of aspects relevant for the utilisation of insects in increasing food and feed quality, safety and security, covering edible insects from harvesting in the wild through to industrial-scale production.

The Study Commission on Insects will organise sessions at the annual EAAP meetings, and the resulting peer-reviewed scientific output will be published in JIFF. The first sessions organised by the Study Commission on Insects will be held during the 2017 EAAP annual meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, 28 August – 1 September.

Dr Teun Veldkamp, a scientist at Wageningen Livestock Research in the Netherlands, is the first president of the new commission. As part of the collaboration with JIFF, he will join the editorial board of the journal. Jørgen Eilenberg, professor at the University of Copenhagen and editorial board member of JIFF since its launch, is also a member of the Study Commission on Insects. The other commission members are Michelle Epstein (Medical University of Vienna), Alessandro Agazzi (University of Milan), Marian Peters (International Insect Centre), Alexis Angot (Ynsect) and Roel Boersma (Protix).

“Growing of insects can be fully considered now as mini-livestock,” says Teun Veldkamp. “It requires multi-disciplinary approaches and EAAP as well as JIFF are essential institutions for science and industry.”