Our Origin

It was a cool spring day in a paddock just out of Wagga Wagga where an unlikely combination of a chemical ecologist and an Ag entrepreneur pondered a few small green and brown beetles crawling into a dung pat.

“So… job done…doesn’t feel like it” muttered the ecologist.

After five years, the Dung Beetle: Ecosystem Engineers (DBEE) program was coming to an end. With help from a large team of researchers, farmers, Landcare groups and backed by funding from Meat and Livestock Australia and the federal government the program had imported new species, undertaken over 500 field trials and developed swaths of new knowledge about these hard-working insects.

But research is just a sunk cost until it is shared, adopted and then has an impact on farm. A shared coffee later and Dr Russ Barrow and Paul Meibusch had laid out what has become Ecoinsects. Their shared vision began with ensuring the legacy of the DBEE program would be realised and expanded beyond the southern states but has now extended to a wide range of beneficial insects for agriculture.

 The journey Ecoinsects will be assisting many farmers on will not be easy, integrated pest/weed management is not about exchanging pesticide for predator, it is about understanding the systems well enough to fully utilise all available options in a long-term sustainable way. More often than not, we learn as much from our clients as they from us, as we work with them to develop a better way of producing food and fibre.

Ecoinsects operates out of Wagga Wagga (NSW), Toowoomba (Qld), and Gympie (Qld) but supplies insects across the country and around the world.

Learn more about us 

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