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.
Backed by 60 years of research, EcoInsects works with farmers and landowners to match them with the right dung beetles for their property and operation.
Established in 2023, EcoInsects was born from the Dung Beetle Ecosystem Engineers project which looked to improve the distribution and quantify the environmental and economic benefits of dung beetles.
While our focus is initially on dung beetles, we also work on other beneficial insect species. For example, in season we have available the St John’s Wort beetle to control the weed species St John’s wort which is toxic to livestock.
