MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
FAO challenge: insects to feed sustainably a world population of 9 billion
Insects can provide a sustainable and environmentally-friendly option for animal feed, in addition to already being a mainstay of human diets for 2 billion people worldwide, FAO Assistant Director-General Eduardo Rojas-Briales told an international gathering of researchers in The Netherlands. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesChocolate-coated locusts - proteins, fats and carbs.
May 24th, 2014 - 04:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The New World Order is about FEUDALISM. The unelected Lords will tell the vassals what to eat - and brainwash them on why it is good.
May 24th, 2014 - 05:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It IS ABOUT CREATING ARTIFICIAL scarcity - offering humanity LESS - but charging them (and taxing them) MORE.
Whilst the poor live on insects,
May 24th, 2014 - 08:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0the rich and powerful,
will struggle to gobble down a 5 course meal, and that's before the 3 courses of afters..
It's 2015 now and I am 68 YO.
May 24th, 2014 - 10:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I am so pleased I will miss out on this “feeding frenzy” opportunity.
:o)
Slow down Chris, it's only 2014. Time already goes too fast.
May 24th, 2014 - 10:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0But articles like this appear quite regularly. As if these and yet the world still muddles through without resorting to mass insect rearing.
While the world population is indeed growing, I will live to see peak-human. It's slowing radically. In places like China and India, they have to keep revising growth down because it is slowing so much quicker than they estimated.
If Africa could have an agricultural revolution and increase their productivity then articles like this will be a hilarious historical anecdote.
@5
May 25th, 2014 - 12:40 am - Link - Report abuse 0I don’t agree, I believe humanity can’t escape Malthusian catastrophe at the rate its consuming recourses that are already finite.
Don’t forget there are millions starving as we speak. In 2008 there were major strains and pressure on food prices and commodities before the subprime crisis hit hard the world into recession.
There is no reason that we don’t hit the same situation in a near future unless China’s bubble explodes into recession you will see a major famines in many parts of the world.
Africa has only known dictators and civil wars since they became independent. And they are still reproducing like rabbits. I don’t understand what goes in the mind of someone that brings to the world a kid only to starve and beg and to go through malnutrition and thirst, ever get to go to school, nothing.
That is the problem.
““Raising insects for feed is an environmentally friendly and efficient way of producing animal feed,” said Rojas. “Insects can be fed on bio-waste, compost and animal slurry, and can transform these into high-quality protein for animal feed.”
May 25th, 2014 - 05:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0I agree with this. Equally insects can be farmed for human consumption. The protein can be reformed as to ones taste and prefered textures.
Also, prawns, shrimp and lobster etc have exo-skeletons and the world devours the inner flesh with gusto. Just needs a change of mind-set, that's all, it's not that different really.
We could modify and farm some really big bugs and eat them, much better than factory-farming more sentinent beings like chickens!
I have eaten a great variety of creatures when visiting friends in SE Asia etc.
Just think of them as ”land-lobsters”.
Job done.
What's the problem?
I think this is something that has to be considered, and I applaud the initiative.
May 25th, 2014 - 05:46 am - Link - Report abuse 0I've eaten both witchetty grubs and honey ants. They were delicious.
7
May 25th, 2014 - 05:50 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yep… It’s a matter of changing mindset, I agree.
Before sushi bars came about not so long ago people in the west despised the idea of eating raw fish.
Insects have incredibly fast biological cycles and you can produce your protein in less than a year.
It’s likely that as you say the insects get grinded into powder and they incorporate the protein in some other form.
UNnelected, UNaccountable, UNrepentant U.N. bureaucrats are not going to tell me what to eat.
May 25th, 2014 - 06:00 am - Link - Report abuse 0I have no problem with people eating fried cockroaches, glazed centipedes, or dung beatles if they chose, but the very globalist organizations suggesting a bug diet, ARE the very ones creating the shortages to begin with.
It is the Hegelian Dialectic - problem, reaction, solution.
@10
May 25th, 2014 - 07:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0I don't see how you are contributing to this debate
You sound a lot like TTT.
Genuine change comes from the 'bottom-up' not from the 'top-down' so we can agree that we should not leave it to the 'global corporates'.
Jbrenn will you join me in this consumer revolution?
Just post your email here and I will be in contact.
Peace!
@ 5 Anglotino
May 25th, 2014 - 11:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0“Slow down Chris, it's only 2014. Time already goes too fast.”
Yes, young man, and the older you get the faster the damn thing goes: a week today it will be June!
The mistake came about due to me getting immersed in my 2015 – 2016 budgets so the challenge for me now is to fulfil them. :o)
@11
May 25th, 2014 - 12:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have no idea what a TTT is.
Change today is being pushed from the top down. Unelected bureaucrats in the wanna-be world government are pushing for an authoritarian agenda globally.
Individual rights are under attack unless people understand what is at stake. The 'corporates' are creating food shortages to keep prices high and move people to a more vegan diet.
It is all about control to the globalists. They are trying to destroy sovereignty and individual choice. I will not only resist this but fight it.
FYI - the 'Corporates' consider themselves and actually call themselves revolutionaries. I consider myself a counter revolutionary. I will continue to eat real food organically grown of my choice.
You can reach me through this forum.
Cheers
Where can I find out more about the revolution?
@13
May 25th, 2014 - 01:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Though I agree with your views about the UN, its more to do with what you will be affording to eat in the future than what they are actually telling you to eat.
@7 You'll have to excuse me but I have a major problem with breeding insects large enough to provide a steak. Or the Sunday roast. Although there might be some mileage for large families that want a leg each. Also might help in Africa!
May 25th, 2014 - 02:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Maybe if they had mass sterilizations or used condoms more, we would not have this predicament.
May 25th, 2014 - 10:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It is all about people breeding who cannot afford to take care of their kids.
Many of the religions are to blame for this.
Klingon
May 26th, 2014 - 10:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0You first for sterilisation! Or perhaps your mother should have been first.
CabezaDura2
This Malthusian catastrophe is still always in the future. It never seems to eventuate. While there are millions starving, this is not a worldwide phenomenon but contained to certain areas and countries. And while there will be famines in the future; this is not going to be a global event.
There are plenty of countries that produce more food than they consume. With no need to start farming insects, though that does not mean that it could not be a viable food source to help increase nutrition for some people, but hardly the whole world.
And while Africa might have the highest population growth rates in the world, you have to have perspective on this:
Africa: 30.4 million km2, 1 billion people, 33.7 people per km2
Europe: 10.2 million km2, 738 million people, 72.5 people per km2
I come from a continent with only 2.8 people per km2 – so even South America’s 22 people per km2 seems crowded to me.
However, even Africa’s TFR is dropping. It is just lagging by about 30 years.
The simply fact is that birth rates are dropping ALL over the world. It is surprising to some but here are some of the countries that NOW have below replacement birthrates:
Brazil
Thailand
Vietnam
Turkey
Colombia
Paraguay
Iran
Libya
And these ones are just about to hit replacement level so will be probably be under it in the next decade:
Morocco
Saudi Arabia
Indonesia
Peru
Argentina
Mexico
And India, which provides the largest in actual growth numbers, is dropping extremely fast. Faster than many predicted. Already the actual increase per year is decreasing each year. So even with more people than ever, the decline has already started. And demographics compounds so this decline will gain momentum simply because it exists.
There is no Malthusian catastrophe. Peak human is coming and the world will have to learn to adapt to a shrinking population.
And there are plenty of countries that produce less than they consume...
May 26th, 2014 - 12:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Australia is a bloody desert most of it that every two years or so goes up in flames.
You are not taking into account deserts and non arable áreas and the advance of deserts themselves.
You are not taking into account very dangerous issues that are coming up like CCD, that threaten food producing giants like the USA.
You are not taking into account the appearance of tolerant pests and weeds and the need for ever more concentrated biocids.
And most of all you are taking energy out of the equation. Another oil peak is probably due in the future (even shale oil and gas is expected to peak by 2040s).
And you also have to consider what diet can be afforded and what it will look like.
It just takes a couple of dollars to increase in food prices in many parts of the world and you have outspread famines
I would agree that most important shock of hunger will be felt in Africa, Central America South East Asia and India though.
Klingon has point and that is you cant keep on bringing kids to the world that you cant just feed properly.
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