The FAO/IAEA interactive spreadsheet for design and operation of insect mass rearing facilities

An electronic spreadsheet is described which helps users to design, equip and operate facilities for the mass rearing of insects for use in insect pest control programmes integrating the sterile insect technique. The spreadsheet was designed based on experience accumulated in the mass rearing of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), using genetic sexing strains based on a temperature sensitive lethal (tsl) mutation. The spreadsheet takes into account the biological, production, and quality control parameters of the species to be mass reared, as well as the diets and equipment required. All this information is incorporated into the spreadsheet for user-friendly calculation of the main components involved in facility design and operation. Outputs of the spreadsheet include size of the different rearing areas, rearing equipment, volumes of diet ingredients, other consumables, as well as personnel requirements. By adding cost factors to these components, the spreadsheet can estimate the costs of facility construction, equipment, and operation. All the output parameters can be easily generated by simply entering the target number of sterile insects required per week. For other insect species, the biological and production characteristics need to be defined and inputted accordingly to obtain outputs relevant to these species. This spreadsheet, available under http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/ipc/index.html, is a powerful tool for project and facility managers as it can be used to estimate facility cost, production cost, and production projections under different rearing efficiency scenarios. (author)