Mealworm Farming Analysis 

1. Mealworm Farming, a similar analysis to Cricket Farming

-Some calculations with the same 13,000 square foot farm as the crickets:

• Mealworms can be produced at a rate of 1-1.5 lbs of mealworm  every 6 months using 1.5 sq ft boxes (bugibe.com)

• Making the same assumptions as the cricket farm with 10% of the total for farming/ walking purposes.

• There will be approximately 7800 boxes in the farm, 

• Given very ideal production cycles,  there will be 9750 pounds of mealworm every 6 months

• mealworms weigh approximately 100mg (birdcare.com)

• This means the farm produces 4.5 million mealworms per week

• Here is where the way mealworms are eaten can vary the nutritional value. 

• Assuming that when a mealworm is dried or roasted, they lose 25% of their mass, protein and fat per mealworm are ~40g and 15g respectively

• Dried mealworms and roasted mealworms have very similar nutritional value

• This leads to 1856 kg of protein and 675 kg of fat every development cycle if they are dried/roasted​

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2. Mealworm Farming- CO2 Emissions 

• Estimates from a paper show that mealworms produce around 3kgCO2/kg of mealworm.

• Therefore from a 13,000 sq ft farm which produces 9750 lbs of mealworm every six months produces 4422 kg of mealworm

• This means that the farm will produce 8844 kg of mealworms every year and 26500 kg of CO2 every year. 

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3. How many people could be sustained from this farm?

• From the cricket analysis, the average adult male needs approximately 56g of protein each day

• Every 6 months, this farm will produce 1856 kg and 675kg of protein and fat respectively

• Therefore in a year, this farm will produce 3712kg or protein and 1350kg of fat 

• This leads to 10.2kg of protein and 3.7kg of fat per day.

• Means that this farm can support up to 184 persons per day.