[pif]

If the insects are fed "naturally", though!

[throwawayffffas]

If the insects are fed naturally, it would probably be more cost effective to feed the chickens whatever you are feeding the insects. The only reason to introduce the insects would be if you were using something the chicken cannot eat, like wood.

[LunaSea]

Living organisms don't metabolise and transform matter in the same way.

A chicken eating an insect who ate a plant could produce higher quality feed and thus chicken than if the chicken ate the plant directly.

[amunozo]

Same with humans. It's much more efficient to feed humans directly than animals for human consumption.

[Gibbon1]

Reminds me there are startups looking at vat grown protein using hydrogen and CO2 to feed nitrogen fixing bacteria.

An interesting thing is solar farms are maybe 30-50 times more efficient than corn. So the above isn't insane on the face of it.