A few weeks ago I wrote about the growing interest in eating insects, especially in developed countries like ours.
Now the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has published a wide-ranging study into the history, current practices and future potential of this.
The Report, ten years in the making, looks at how people might move from gathering insects in the wild, for local processing and consumption, to farming them on an industrial scale to feed both people and animals.
This is no quirky niche market exercise; the world's population is likely to reach nine billion people by 2050.
The increase is taking place at the same time as climate change and other factors (including the space needed by the extra people) are predicted to reduce the area of land available to produce food. Innovative approaches to feeding everyone are essential.
Although in the West there is often revulsion at the idea of eating insects, in less developed countries there is an existing base to build on. According to the Report nearly 2,000 insect species are already part of the diet of at least two billion people.
The most commonly eaten insects are beetles, caterpillars, ants, bees and wasps, and grasshoppers, locusts and crickets.
All stages of insects are consumed, for instance ant eggs and pupa, beetle grubs and moth caterpillars, and adult grasshoppers and dragonflies. Smaller species can be produced in huge numbers to turn into animal feed, especially fishmeal and chickenfeed.
Rearing insects for food has many advantages.
They are rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals, and they can produce some elements, such as such as omega-3 and fatty acids as, or more efficiently than, fish, cattle and pigs. Insects require less land and water, and emit less carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia.
They are much more efficient than animals like cattle and sheep at turning their food into themselves. Widely eaten mopane worms for example (these are the caterpillars of an emperor moth in Africa) apparently need three kilos of leaves to yield one kilo of worms, whereas cattle need ten kilos of feed to produce one kilo of meat.
Add to these the facts that some crop pests can themselves be eaten (in the tropics the most popular edible beetles are palm weevils which are described in the FAO Report as 'significant palm pests') and that many species can be raised on organic waste such as manure and waste meat, and the case is compelling.
The prospect of snacking on chocolate covered bees (a Nigerian delicacy), crispy fried locusts, or nectar-rich oak galls (available in Mexican markets) may be strange to us now. Perhaps though our grandchildren will happily be doing so, sustaining themselves and the planet at the same time.
A full report is available here .
