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| Students observe a larva during a 2020 class for insect farming training offered by Seoul Metropolitan Government. Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government |
Korea's insect market swells to $286 million in 2020, expected to grow further
By Ko Dong-hwan
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has started looking for people aspiring to become virtual experts in entomology to boost the city's insect industry and the country's competitiveness in the international market for creepy-crawlies.
The Urban Farming Division under the city government's Economic Policy Office on April 25 started accepting applicants for classes that begin in May and continue until October. With the class size limited to 30, the city's annual program teaches about various insects and their traits, how to farm insects, domestic and international insect markets, and insect smart-farming. Not only basic knowledge about insect farming, but expert-level know-how for those already engaged in the business will also be taught.
Those who have learned from the city program since 2018 could serve as instructors at various farming technique centers nationwide or establish a start-up company related to the field.
Cho Sang-tae, head of the Agricultural Technique Center under the city government, said he launched this year's program to nurture entrepreneurs to utilize insect resources, which he claimed was one of the country's leading industries for the 21st century.
"The program will help not just insect farmers, but also those interested in establishing a start-up in the future," Cho said. "It will expand the human resources pool for the city's insect industry."
The Rural Development Administration (under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs) appointed the city government in 2017 as an official educational institute for specialized workers for the country's insect industry. Since then, the number of schools for aspiring insect farmers grew to 11, including two schools each in North Chungcheong, North Jeolla, and South Jeolla provinces.
According to 2021 data from the agricultural ministry, the country's insect market grew almost 22 percent on average annually since 2012 when the government began registering private businesses involved in the market. The total number of registered businesses jumped from 908 in 2015 to 2,535 in 2019, while sales grew from 16.2 billion won ($12.8 million) in 2015 to over 40 billion won in 2019.
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| A senior official of the insect material research laboratory at the Rural Development Administration in Jeonju leans next to various insect larvae preserved for research in October 2021. Korea Times |
The Seoul city government said the country's insect market was scaled at 264 billion won in 2018 and grew to almost 362 billion won in 2020. It is expected to grow to almost 630 billion won by 2030.
The ministry's data also showed the international insect market is expected to grow as well in the coming years. Citing U.S.-based global market research and consulting firm Global Market Insights, the international market for edible insects was $112 million in 2019 and is expected to grow to $710 million by 2024. The data also showed international insect feed market in 2019 was $772 million and will grow to $1.39 billion by 2024.
Domestic insect industry diversifying
The domestic insect industry was originally limited to usages in medicine, beekeeping and sericulture or the cultivation of silkworms. It has now diversified to natural applications, pollen spreading, insect exhibitions, education, functional foods, food waste treatment, animal feed and bioenergy sources. After a 2019 revision to the country's Livestock Industry Act re-categorized 14 insects as livestock ― including bell-ring crickets, rhinoceros beetle, silkworms and mealworm beetles ― the legal usage of insects expanded even more.
Some of the fastest growing sectors in the country's insect industry are bioengineering, biomimetics (emulating the systems and elements of nature to solve problems) and environmental clean-up. For instance, droves of black soldier flies or house flies are used to naturally decompose organic waste. Insects are also now referenced when creating new materials or developing sensors and robots based on insect biomimetics. Ingredients for new functional medicines are also increasingly discovered from insects.
But according to a 2020 survey on insect-related business operators, insects in the country were still mostly used for food or medicinal purposes ― by over 84 percent of the respondents.
According to a study by the Agricultural Technique Center, advanced countries have been nurturing their insect industries from a long-term perspective. Japan introduced separate laws for managing pet insects and edible insects. The U.S. and the European Union, to better manage their insect industries, have been legally controlling the production of microorganism-based pesticides and introduced laws for separately managing species categorized under flora and fauna. The Netherlands has been investing heavily on an industry based on natural enemy insects, which enabled the country to export related agricultural produce.
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| Desserts created by the Rural Development Administration contain powdered mealworm beetles, right. Korea Times |
"Korea retains world-class technologies in beekeeping, sericulture-based material development, and psychological consulting using pet insects," the research cited the Rural Development Administration as saying. "But the country has only about 30 percent of technologies of advanced countries like the U.S., Japan, China and the EU for insect-based functional analyses, developing edible insect-based foods, and sustainable insect control for agricultural crops using natural enemy insects."
The research furthermore stated that technologies used in the insect industry largely differed between eastern and western countries: the former has a tendency to use insects for "consumption" purposes such as using them for food or medicinal ingredients, while the latter has been more interested in applying insects to various environmental purposes such as natural enemy-based applications, pollen spreading and decomposing livestock excrement.
The insect industry, while the world is under the threat of a climate crisis, should also contribute to preserving the biodiversity of insect species in the country, according to experts. The climate crisis affected the country's ecosystem, leading to the mass deaths of certain species which led to their natural prey species to exponentially increase in number. Such chains of events jeopardized the biodiversity of insects in the country.
"Because most of the insects used in the country's insect industry are indigenous, preserving the biodiversity of the country's domestic insects is important," Park Hae-cheol, a former official from the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences under the Rural Development Administration, told The Korea Times. "The country's future insect industry will sustain itself only when insect diversity is secured."
While the growth of the insect industry may not correlate to affecting the climate crisis' impact, Park said it will contribute to increasing popularity of insect resources and thus raising public awareness on importance of preserving biodiversity of insects in the country.
"I think the industry's prosperity will help people better understand the problems of certain insect species disappearing or suddenly increasing in number due to the climate crisis," Park said. "It will encourage people to come up with measures to prevent further climate crisis impacts."
