Agriculture committee  This is a challenge that we face. Our feedstock is the organics and by-products that come from grocery stores and producers. While there is a lot, it is a limited amount. What we are constantly trying to do is push the envelope to try to take more and more of the organics and divert them from the compost or landfill.

Agriculture committee  I think it makes sense. Yes, I will try to answer your question as I understood it. One of the things—

Agriculture committee  Yes, I'll answer that question quickly. One of the challenges we have is how we add this frass to the fields. We're working with local agronomists now to figure out the formulation, and the best way to either broadcast spread or in-furrow the frass. That's one of the great things we are doing right now.

Agriculture committee  One thing we have seen is that frass is a great way to add carbon back into the soil. It's really standardizing how we measure this. It's really opening up the idea about what crop species frass work best on. We have several studies going on here with different crops, but we're going to have a limited resource.

Agriculture committee  The protein side is well established. I didn't mention early on that among the many other crises the globe is facing right now, the protein crisis is another one. With the rising middle class and more demand for high-quality foods, the push to higher protein foods is dramatic. The insect industry will play a role.

Agriculture committee  Our company right now sources its feed from the by-products of other food production industries. There are several organic producers in the Halifax area, and a lot of them are currently paying to have their organics removed by a waste-hauling company that takes them to a composting facility.

Agriculture committee  Sure, I have better than ballpark figures, yes. For every tonne of wet organic material that comes through our door, we produce about 250 kilograms of wet larvae. This is the larvae prior to drying and turning it into protein powder. We also produce about 250 kilograms of frass, which is the fertilizer material, so it's quite a large reduction in organics.

Agriculture committee  Yes. We do have that number. If I was to be asked next week, we will have our full LCA, which is just about to be completed for our facility. One great thing about the insect industry and indoor agriculture in general is that because it's done indoors under a very controlled environment, we measure everything.

Agriculture committee  I'm currently sitting in our pilot facility which is 7,000 square feet. That's the whole production facility. The actual area in our facility where we're rearing the soldier flies is about the size of a tennis court. In that area we are able to produce the same amount of protein as about 140 to 160 acres of corn.

Agriculture committee  Definitely, one of the things we actually get from a lot of industry that are looking to sign offtake agreements with us on the protein and on the frass side of things is: Can you get to scale and how quickly can you get to scale? On the protein side, we have several large industrial players in the United States.

Agriculture committee  The insect industry is one of those. We tick a lot of boxes, especially when it comes to climate change and meeting ESG goals for our partners, both upstream and downstream. There is a lot that we can do. What can be done is helping with the data. It was mentioned earlier on. It's the collection of data.

Agriculture committee  BSFL, or black soldier fly larvae—I'm glad that you said black soldier fly larvae and not blackfly larvae, because we'd be run out of Canada if we actually started rearing those—is a very good species of insect to feed to multiple livestock animals, such as chickens, poultry, swine, and also aquaculture.

Agriculture committee  Thank you to the chair and thank you to the committee for this opportunity to address you today. I am part of what's a relatively new agriculture industry here in Canada, and that's the insect farming industry. Oberland Agriscience was incorporated in 2017, and we're just breaking ground on our first large-scale facility here in Halifax.