Chapter 21: Insects and Food Security in Developing Economies: Threat, Opportunity, and the Institutions That Decide Which Prevails: Insects and food security in developing countries

Insects occupy a paradoxical position in food security science. They are simultaneously among the most destructive forces acting against food systems and among the most underexploited resources for strengthening them. Pre-harvest pest damage and postharvest storage losses attributable to insects remove a substantial share of the food that developing economies produce before it ever reaches a plate. While, at the same time, insects themselves represent a nutrient-dense, resource-efficient food and feed source that remains largely outside formal food systems and regulatory frameworks. This chapter argues that which of these two faces predominates in any given country is not primarily a biological or technical matter but an institutional one. Drawing on the desert locust upsurge of 2019–2021, the spread of fall armyworm across Asia and Africa, and the slow institutionalization of insect farming and entomophagy in countries such as Thailand, the chapter develops the Insect-Mediated Food Security Framework (IMFSF), which models net food security impact as the difference between institutionally mediated losses avoided and institutionally mediated value captured. The framework is applied in depth to Pakistan, where weak extension delivery, pesticide subsidy distortions, fragmented quarantine authority, and an absent regulatory pathway for insect-based food and feed products together constrain both sides of the ledger. The chapter closes with a sequenced set of governance recommendations addressing surveillance and early warning, integrated pest management institutionalization, and the regulatory foundations needed to convert insects from food security liability into a food security asset.