Billions of bugs — a solution to world hunger?
For all our amazing technological advances, there are still elements of the natural world that humans have not been able to tame — extreme weather and the floods or droughts that come with them, and insects.
There are apparently about 200-million insects for every human, or 10 quintillion of the little critters, which is a 10 with 18 zeros. I can’t vouch for the numbers, but if you consider that, collectively, termites outweigh humans 10 to one, according to the New Yorker, it sounds about right.
Insects, for all their many beneficial qualities, are also a risk to food security and economic growth. Fall army worm, which has devastated maize and other crops in Africa, can spread rapidly, flying up to 100km a night, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Shothole borer is putting not only ornamental trees in SA at risk, but also agriculture. The beetle and the fatal fungi it harvests have been discovered in pecan nut trees in the Northern Cape, and the government has warned that it could affect avocado, macadamia, peach and orange trees, and grapevines.
But with global hunger and the constant bid to feed a growing population, which will rise to 9-billion by 2030, insects might be a solution. Not only as animal feed — insects are used as fish and poultry feed — but for wide-scale human consumption.
Insects are already eaten by South Africans, elsewhere in Africa, in Latin America and in Asia. The benefits of insects as a food source are that they reproduce and grow quickly, can be reared on waste, and some are highly nutritious, according to the FAO.
It says conflict, adverse weather and economic slowdowns have resulted in nearly 821-million people facing chronic food deprivation last year from 804-million in 2016. In
Africa, 256-million people are affected.
Conflict plays a major role in food insecurity, but climate events are as damaging. The FAO says the number of extreme climate-related disasters has doubled since the early 1990s.
While extreme weather dents agricultural productivity, the food value chain damages the environment through water and fossil-fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and packaging waste.
Consumers in developed countries may consider eating insects a stretch too far, but frog’s legs, fish eggs, snails and raw fish have all found their way onto dinner plates. And the mass production of the more standard fare of meat, chicken and eggs is pretty stomach-turning.
Insects eaten around the world include beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants and grasshoppers.
And therein lies the rub, because with humans’ rapacious appetite, wide-scale production of insects will have unintended environmental consequences, and, considering their essential role in ecosystems, that could be devastating.
There are apparently about 200-million insects for every human on earth