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HISTORY OF IFW

The first “Insects to Feed the World” (IFW) conference took place from 14 to 17 May 2014 in the Netherlands. The conference was hosted by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. This conference was attended by 450 people from 45 countries. The event featured 112 presentations and 54 posters on key topics in the field.

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The conference was conceived and organised by Professor Arnold van Huis, a tropical entomologist at WUR and by Paul Vantomme, Senior Forestry Officer at the FAO. The conference was preceded by a seminal FAO publication in 2013: “EDIBLE INSECTS: Future prospects for Food and Feed Security” (FAO Forestry Paper, No 171; https://www.fao.org/3/i3253e/i3253e.pdf) whose authors included A. van Huis and P. Vantomme. This report had been downloaded millions of times and generated extensive publicity. 

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It is difficult to understate the impact of that first FAO publication and the conference that followed. Many of the companies and organizations that are currently scaling insect solutions around the world owe their earliest inspiration to the paper and/or conference. Ever since IFW has been the premier event of stakeholders working on insects as feed and food.

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The 2nd Insects to Feed the World Conference was held in 2018 in Wuhan China. The local organisers included several universities and research institutes such as China Huazhong Agricultural University and the Guangdong Institute of Applied Biological Resources. The 3rd IFW conference was held virtually in 2020 due to restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the 4th conference was held in Quebec, Canada hosted by a consortium of public and private institutions including the Université Laval, Entotechnologies, and the Québec Insect Breeders and Processors Association.

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The 5th Insects to Feed the World conference was awarded to Singapore, where it will be hosted by the Asian Feed and Food Insect Association (AFFIA). The local organising committee includes prominent researchers, executives of leading insect ventures and local government representatives.

AFFIA LEADERSHIP

Executive Committee

Emilie DEVIC (AFFIA)
Cameron RICHARDS (Veolia)
Charles RODDE (Entofood)
Cody LEE (Insect Feed Technologies)
David ALLAN (Spectrum)
 
AFFIA President

Nick PIGGOTT (Nutrition Technologies)

CONGRESS ORGANISATION

Co-General Chair

Martin ZORRILLA (Nutrition Technologies)
Leo WEIN (Protenga)


Co-Programme Chair

Christian HERMANSEN (SIFBI A*STAR)
Eric Charles PETERSON (INRS Quebec & A*STAR)


Finance Chair

Cameron RICHARDS (Veolia)
 
Committee Member

Lei CAO (Enterprise Singapore)
Bicky NGUYEN (Cricket One)
Wenqian CHEN (NUS)
Sean TAN (Insect Feed Technologies)
Emilie DEVIC (AFFIA)
Gauri SAINI (Nutrition Technologies)
Salamahafifi YUSNAIENY (Protenga)
 
Scientific Committee Chair

Moritz GOLD (Singapore-ETH Centre)
Adrian FUHRMANN (Singapore-ETH Centre)

IFW24 SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE 

  • Kokou ADJALLE (Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Deborah AMULEN (Makerere University)

  • Karol BARRAGAN FONSECA (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)

  • Meghan BARRETT (Indiana University – Indianapolis)

  • Dennis BEESIGAMUKAMA (International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology)

  • Heather BISCHEL (UC Davis)

  • Ishka BLESS (University of Adelaide – Nottingham) 

  • Diana BOGUEVA (Curtin University)

  • Guido BOSCH (Wageningen University & Research)

  • Stephen CAIRNS (Monash Indonesia & ETH Zurich)

  • Roman CARRASCO (National University of Singapore)

  • Chiradip CHATTERJEE (Republic Polytechnic)

  • Shaphan CHIA (International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology)

  • Patricia CONWAY (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Eraldo Medeiros COSTA-NETO (Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana)

  • David DERUYTTER (Insect Research Centre of Inagro)

  • Marie-Hélène DESCHAMPS (Université Laval)

  • Marcel DICKE (Wageningen University & Research)

  • Stefan DIENER (Eclose GmbH)

  • Tim EGAN (Regen Organics)

  • Jonas FINCK (Madebymade GmbH)

  • Lotte FROONINCKX (Thomas More University of Applied Sciences)

  • Adrian FUHRMANN (Singapore-ETH Centre & ETH Zurich)

  • Laura GASCO (University of Turin)

  • Tom GENERALOVIC (University of Cambridge)

  • Anton GLIGORESCU (Aarhus University)

  • Moritz GOLD (ETH Zurich)

  • Alexandra GUIGUE (Innovafeed)

  • Hadura Abu HASAN (Universiti Sains Malaysia)

  • Lars-Henrik Lau HECKMANN (Better Insect Solutions)

  • Louise HENAULT-ÉTHIER (INRS/Centre Eau Terre Environnement)

  • Christian HERMANSEN (A*star)

  • Elise HOEK – VAN DEN HIL (Wageningen Food Safety Research)

  • Yongping HUANG (Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences)

  • Vijay JAYASENA (University of Western Sydney)

  • Heather JORDAN (Mississippi State University)

  • Thomas KLAMMSTEINER (University of Innsbruck)

  • Cecilia LALANDER (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

  • Antoine LECOCQ (University of Copenhagen)

  • Janice LEE (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Noah LEMKE (Texas A&M)

  • Julie LESNIK (Wayne State University)

  • John Ndung’u KINYURU (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology)

  • Marie-Pierre LÉTOURNEAU-MONTMINY (FSAA Université Laval)

  • Chujun LI (Guangzhou Unique Biotechnology Co. Ltd.)

  • Siebe LIEVENS (VITO)

  • Mei Hui LIU (National University of Singapore)

  • Grace LOO (Republic Polytechnic)

  • LOO Poh Leong (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Alexander MATHYS (ETH Zurich)

  • Frank MNTHAMBALA (Mzuzu University)

  • Wilfried MOREIRA (Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Science Engineering)

  • Vusi MSHAYISA (Cape Peninsula University of Technology)

  • Somaya NASER EL DEEN (Wageningen University & Research)

  • Joyce ONG (Nanyang Technological University)

  • Dennis OONINCX (Wageningen University & Research)

  • Christoph OTTENHEIM (A*STAR)

  • Alejandro PARODI (Wageningen University & Research)

  • Eric PETERSON (Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Jun Wei PHUA (INSECTTA Pte. Ltd.)

  • Christine PICARD (IUPUI)

  • Elsje PIETERSE (Stellenbosch University)

  • Miha PIPPA (Better Origin)

  • Rocio PONCE-REYES (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)

  • Noratat PRACHOM (Kasetsart Universit)

  • Nanna ROOS (University of Copenhagen)

  • Christos I. RUMBOS (University of Thessaly)

  • Birgit RUMPOLD (Technische Universität Berlin)

  • Christoph SANDROCK (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture)

  • Michel SAUVAIN (Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia)

  • Eric SCHMITT (Protix)

  • Toke Munk SCHOU (Enorm)

  • Suqin SHAO (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)

  • Matan SHELOMI (National Taiwan University)

  • Jeroen DE SMET (KU Leuven)

  • Sergiy SMETANA (German Institute of Food Technologies)

  • Valerie STULL (University of Wisconsin–Madison Global Health Institute)

  • Magdalene TAN (Republic Polytechnic)

  • Chrysanthus M. TANGA (International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology)

  • Hidayah TAUFEK (Universiti Malaya)

  • Gianluca TETTAMANTI (University of Insubria)

  • Jacqui TODD (The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd)

  • Jeff TOMBERLIN (Texas A&M University)

  • Arnold VAN HUIS (Wageningen University & Research)

  • Joop VAN LOON (Wageningen University)

  • Grant W VANDENBERG (Université Laval)

  • Dries VANDEWEYER (KU Leuven)

  • Teun VELDKAMP (Wageningen Livestock Research)

  • Andreas VILCINSKAS (LOEWE Center for Insect Biotechnology & Bioresources)

  • Bianca WASSMANN (Singapore ETH-Centre)

  • Pabodha WETHTHASINGHE (University of Peradeniya)

  • Amy ZHANG (New York University)

  • Jibin ZHANG (College of Life Science & Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University)

  • Longyu ZHENG (Huazhong Agricultural University)

  • Martin Jose ZORRILLA (Nutrition Technologies)

  • Chris ZURBRUGG (Eawag)

  • Takuya UEHARA (National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences: Tsukuba, Japan) 

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