Center for Environmental Sustainability through Insect Farming (CEIF)
The Center for Insect Biomanufacturing and Innovation (CIBI), formerly known as the Center for Environmental Sustainability through Insect Farming (CEIF), is an organization with the end goal of normalizing and modernizing insect farming across the globe. The organization was begun by the idea and maintains that insect farming decreases pollution, increases quality control, and may be a more sustainable way of mass-producing and providing food.[1][2]
The organization is a collaboration between Texas A&M University, Mississippi State University, and Indiana University Indianapolis.[1] Texas A&M's AgriLife in the Department of Entomology mainly works within Insect rearing; the best ways to raise, feed and produce the insects.[3] They have named their sect of the company the "Center for Insect Biomanufacturing and Innovation".[4][5] IU Indianapolis works in the genetic aspect of the insects.[6][7] Mississippi State University works in plant pathology and agriculture with the departments of Entomology, Plant Pathology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology.[8]
CIBI is a result of a collaboration between the NSF and the three universities, called the National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (NSF IUCRC) Program/Partnership.[9][10][11] An IUCRC is a program that combines University research with a business problem that needs to be solved, and bases research around that problem.[12][13]
Many papers have been written at the given Universities under the topics of environmental sustainability in reference to insects as food and feed. Much of the research is done by grad students in the given labs[14]
CIBI has a few ongoing projects: Project 1, Digital Library and Seminar Series; Project 2, Genomic Resource Database; Project 5, Evaluation of Lauric Acid from Insects in Shrimp; Project 6, Gut Health and Performance of Chickens Raised on Insect Feed; and more.[15]
On the business side, CIBI works with companies such as Tyson and the Chapul Farms, which is a company that farms insects for food and livestock feed.[16][17]
