Please share your expertise, programmatic examples, and recommendations to help the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) learn more about the emerging global insect production industry!

Request for Information (RFI) No.: 7200AA22R00008
Issuance Date: November 9, 2021
Response Deadline: December 22, 2021, by 5:00 p.m. EST

USAID, in partnership with USDA, has released a Request for Information (RFI) to learn more about the role of insect production/farming in global food security, climate response, environmental management and livelihoods, especially in an international development context. This purpose of this RFI is to:

• Allow all stakeholders and interested parties to provide information and recommendations regarding global production of insects for food, feed and/or waste management;
• Explore how USAID and USDA can best lead or support insect production activities in the future; and,
• Help the U.S. government understand the potential challenges, benefits, environmental impacts and inclusive development considerations of insect production.

The RFI can be downloaded from https://beta.sam.gov/ and https://grants.gov. Please view the full RFI for complete instructions and the list of questions that USAID and USDA would like answered.

Although anyone can submit a response to the questions contained within this RFI, we are especially interested in responses from:

• Insect production businesses;
• Animal feed businesses;
• Academics working on edible insect production;
• Public and private sector entities working in fields such as, but not limited to, food security, food production, climate issues, economic growth, fisheries, conservation, sanitation and others;
• Traditional USAID and USDA partners, and organizations interested in partnerships; and
• Local organizations and businesses operating in, or looking to operate in, Feed the Future target countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda).

This RFI is issued solely for information, research, and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Proposals or a Notice of Funding of Funding Opportunity. The RFI does not represent any award commitment on the part of the U.S. government, nor does it obligate the government to pay for costs incurred in the preparation and submission of any responses. Information received as part of this RFI shall become the property of USAID. Therefore, proprietary information that cannot be shared should not be sent. While verbatim responses will not be shared publicly, any submitted information may be included in a publicly available high-level summary of the RFI results, or in other public presentations or documents.