Fresh Listing

Posted: March 10, 2026 (4 days ago)

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Insect Production Worker

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Department of Agriculture

Fresh

Salary

$23.56 - $27.53

per hour

Closes

March 16, 2026More USDA jobs →

Job Description

Summary

This job involves hands-on work in a lab-like setting to raise large numbers of insects for agricultural programs, including preparing their food, maintaining their environment, harvesting them, and keeping everything clean and organized.

It's perfect for someone who enjoys repetitive, detail-oriented tasks and has experience with animal care or lab work, even from volunteer roles.

No advanced degree is needed, just practical training in handling insects or similar activities.

Key Requirements

  • Training and experience in insect rearing or mass production
  • Ability to prepare and handle rearing media and diet ingredients
  • Skills in operating equipment for insect diet preparation and production chambers
  • Experience in cleaning, disinfecting, and maintaining work areas and equipment
  • Knowledge of monitoring insect health, life cycles, and environmental controls like temperature and humidity
  • Proficiency in recording data, verifying accuracy, and entering information into databases
  • Attention to detail for separating insects by category and preventing escapes

Full Job Description

The Insect Production Worker performs routine, repetitive assignments involved in insect mass production, packaging, storing, sterilization, and delivering of insects, and is also involved in the cleaning, disinfection, and maintenance of work areas in support of the insect production program.

To qualify, you must show you have had training and experience of sufficient scope and quality to provide you with the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the duties of the position.

Your answers to the vacancy specific questions must be supported by the work experience in your resume.

For example, if you respond in the affirmative when questioned whether you have experience rearing insects, your resume must include this experience, mindful that experience may not be inferred by job title.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social).

Volunteer work helps build critical competencies and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.

You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Major Duties:

  • The duties may include, but are not limited to:
  • Prepares and weighs out different rearing media and diet ingredients.
  • Operates and/or synchronizes multiple pieces of equipment for preparation of insect diets.
  • Assembles and disassembles production chambers.
  • Cleans the chambers and the surrounding of the dispersal facility.
  • Provides feed to insects, controls temperature and humidity, and harvests pupae or adults, records collection data, and verifies that the data is correct.
  • Separates insects into categories such as sex and/or species and controls them to prevent escape or intermingling.
  • Observes insect collections for obvious changes of life cycles, deaths, and general activity, and reports observations to the supervisor.
  • Determines daily production of adults and pupae by determining the average weight and inputting that data into facility database.
  • Prepares disinfectant, for cleaning and sanitation of equipment for rearing of various insect life stages and disinfects based on established protocols.

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Posted on USAJOBS: 3/10/2026 | Added to FreshGovJobs: 3/10/2026

Source: USAJOBS | ID: DE-12904061-26-VS