By 2050, the UN expects that there will be almost 10 billion people on the Earth. This poses some serious practical questions, not least among which is how we’ll put food into 2.5 billion or so extra tummies (especially given that we don’t adequately fill all of the 7-plus billion we already have). If you’re yet to hear alarming phrases like “food security” and “sustainable intensification” you’ve probably been living under a rock. Which is apt, actually, because that’s exactly where you might find one of the proposed answers: insects.
If the need for entomophagy – eating insects – sounds like alarmism, the idea is being taken seriously by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Chief among the arguments is that insects are very efficient to rear compared to other sources of animal protein. Cattle require 12 times more feedstock than do crickets per unit mass of protein grown, while requiring less land and water, and generating less greenhouse gas and ammonia.
Would you give it a try?