Finding cost-effective methods to protect farmers' crops is essential for safeguarding their livelihoods and addressing global food insecurity, as crop losses reduce farmers' incomes and decrease food availability worldwide. This thesis presents a portable insect detection system utilizing a novel configuration of an interdigital capacitor (IDC) microwave oscillator combined with a Software Defined Radio (HackRF) transmitter/receiver application. This low-cost system relies on the microwave resonant cavity perturbation properties and the intense electric-field characteristics of the IDC to detect the movement of two insect species, the Red Flour Beetle (RFB) and the Rusty Grain Beetle (RGB). A modified probe-trap and microwave sensor was used to capture and detect the presence of RFBs within 10 kg of grain using a threshold analysis technique. In addition, small (SM) and large (LG) boundary configurations of the microwave sensor were fabricated to evaluate their effectiveness in differentiating the RFB and RGB signals in the presence of strong and weak electric-fields. An energy expenditure power-law relationship between insect activity and time was identified, revealing for the first time a heightened activity within 60 minutes, followed by a lowered constant insect activity greater than 60 minutes, scaling with 1-to-5 insects for both RFBs and RGBs over a 12-hour period. A time interval-dependent frequency shift and insect activity sensitivity analysis conducted led to the development of a predictive model comparing signals between 1-to-5 RFB and RGB insects using a 95% Confidence Estimate. It was determined that the SM bounded sensor provided overall insect signal enhancement, particularly for the RGB, and excelled when combined frequency shift and insect activity metrics were used for distinguishing insect species. However, the LG boundary only increased species-specific frequency shift differentiation. An optimal species comparison was achieved at time intervals 1 and 5 minutes for both boundaries. This portable system and analysis technique lay the foundations for future comparison of different species and numbers of insects, offering potential application in insect threshold-based pest control strategies.