Edible Insects an Alternative High-Quality Protein Source Joyce Chimbi - IPSNews
go to original May 7, 2022

Will You Be Eating Insects Soon? (The Economist)

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 2.5 billion people eat insects as part of their regular meals, whole or in processed food products such as snacks and pasta. Beatrice Karare from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries says the global edible insect market estimated at $112 million in 2019, could reach $1.5 billion by 2026.

There are approximately 1,900 edible species globally, including butterflies, cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, ants, bees, dragonflies, beetles, domestic silk moths, centipedes and locusts.

According to FAO, turning to insects is not only good for the body but highly environment friendly and could contribute to reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases. The livestock sector contributes significantly to climate change as total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

Cattle reared for beef and milk and inedible outputs such as manure and draft power account for 65 percent of the livestock sector’s emissions. Producing insects for food is yet another alternative to reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases, the FAO says.

Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and half as much as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Additionally, insect-based products are found to have a much smaller carbon footprint in comparison to conventional livestock.

With these revelations, Dr Saliou Niassy, a scientist from icipe, says there is a lot more to learn and benefit from, “we have just scratched the surface in terms of sustainable access to biodiversity for resilience, livelihood, food and nutritional security.”

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