Friday, August 20, 2021
CapitalPress.com 9
Insects: 2.5 billion people eat bugs as part of their daily diet
Continued from Page 1
Sweet and Spicy Ginger and
Honey Cinnamon. She buys
her crickets from a supplier
in Canada.
When she is not work-
ing at her full-time job as a
baker, Newcomb is in the
kitchen or at farmers mar-
kets selling her product and
educating consumers about
the benefits of entomophagy
— eating insects.
Proponents say the insect
protein industry is on the
cusp of a financial boom.
They project it will be worth
almost $8 billion by 2030,
according to a report by ana-
lysts at Barclays bank.
It also helps that big-
name investors are getting
involved.
“I dig it,” actor Robert
Downey Jr. said on the web-
site of the Footprint Coali-
tion, his venture capital firm.
The company has invested
$224 million in Ynsect, a
French company that pro-
duces mealworm protein
as an alternative to fish-
meal and fish oil. It is used
in human food, animal feed
and plant fertilizer.
Proponents also say there
is more to the insect indus-
try than just food and feed.
The Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United
Nations said that insect
farming could also provide
more employment opportu-
nities in rural areas.
For those in the West,
ordering a salad topped with
grasshoppers may represent
the edge of the envelope for
even the most adventurous
diner, but 2.5 billion people
in more than 130 countries
eat bugs as part of their daily
diet. According to the U.N.,
1,900 varieties of insects are
edible.
Insects are also super-
foods. They are high in pro-
tein, fats and vitamins. For
instance, crickets have twice
as much protein per pound
as beef. Similarly, meal-
worms contain up to 60%
protein, and black soldier
fly larvae have 50% crude
protein.
Liselott Lindstrom/The Bug Picture
Black soldier fly larvae
are used as an alternative
protein source for animal
feed.
Mia Ryder-Marks/Capital Press
Joanna Newcomb started Chomper Cricket Foods two years ago. The business sells crickets seasoned with spices
and other ingredients.
Liselott Lindstrom/The Bug Picture
Getty Images
Insects are increasing used as a source of protein and other minerals for people, poul-
try and livestock.
an estimated 1.3 billion
tons of biowaste could be
converted into protein by
insects yearly. Even their
poop — called frass — is a
high-quality fertilizer.
Better buck
for the bug
Future of farming
Although some consum-
ers may not exactly hop at
the chance to eat a pizza
whose crust was made with
cricket flour the next time
they order take-out, another
solution is to feed insects to
the animals that feed us.
A couple of hundred
miles west of Newcomb’s
kitchen, in an old Tree
Top juice factory, rows of
stacked trays house meal-
worm eggs that will soon
produce protein-rich feed
for animals.
Beta Hatch is the brain-
child of Virginia Emery, an
entomologist and entrepre-
neur who started the com-
pany as a backyard exper-
iment. The company sees
insects as a sustainable pro-
tein that will help feed the
world.
Beta Hatch’s mealworms
grow into beetles during
their lifecycle. The eggs they
produce hatch into meal-
worms, which in turn are a
food source for livestock,
poultry and fish across the
nation.
A Bug Picture work-
er feeds chickens meal
made from ground-up
locusts.
Mia Ryder-Marks/Capital Press
Joanna Newcomb, owner of Chomper Cricket Foods, fills pouches with spoonfuls of
seasoned crickets.
The nutrition in meal-
worms is essentially equiv-
alent to other feed that goes
to livestock and poultry,
said Aimee Rudolph, Beta
Hatch’s business model
vice president.
“Mealworms have a
complete amino acid pro-
file, so they can offer com-
plete nutrition to aquacul-
ture, poultry and swine,”
she said.
Halfway around the
globe, almost 9,000 miles
from Washington state, peo-
ple of all ages sift through
Kenyan fields at night, car-
rying burlap sacks they fill
with giant, sleeping locusts.
They work for the Bug
Picture, which was founded
by Laura Standford.
First, a little background.
In 2020, Kenya had its
worst locust infestation in
almost 70 years. They were
everywhere, blanketing the
countryside and eating the
vegetation. Instead of let-
ting the locust swarm take
over, Stanford led a team to
take advantage of it.
“We wanted to create
something a bit more inno-
vative because essentially
locusts are just a sky full of
protein,” she told Capital
Press during a Zoom call
over the internet.
The Bug Picture works
with
communities
in
Kenya to collect locusts,
and then grinds them into
protein-rich feed for poul-
try and livestock and fertil-
izer for farms.
“What we’ve sort of
seen is that there is a lot of
opportunity to use insects
in a creative way to rethink
some of the traditional
agricultural approaches,”
Stanford said.
Closing the ‘food loop’
Experts say insects have
a closed-loop system. This
is because they consume
food waste and turn it
into high-protein feed and
fertilizer.
Jeff Tomberlin, a pro-
fessor at Texas A&M Uni-
versity, said that the black
soldier fly can be fed some-
thing that typically has no
value to humans. They can
live entirely off animal and
food waste.
“This is the only insect
that really can be fed some-
thing that is not in compe-
tition with humanity,” said
Tomberlin. “What I mean
by that is, you’re not feed-
ing this insect soy, or some
other agricultural prod-
uct that could be straight-
forward consumed by live-
stock or by people.”
According to the FAO,
Because insect protein
that is used to feed live-
stock is relatively new to
the West, it is produced on
a much smaller scale com-
pared to other animal feed.
Because of that, Rudolph
of Beta Hatch said it is cur-
rently difficult to compete
with other feeds on price.
“Cost is a huge chal-
lenge because while we
know this is something that
needs to happen in order to
fix the food system, today,
when we’re operating at
these very small scales, it’s
very hard to compete on
price with things like soy
meal, and even fish meal,”
she said.
But some experts pre-
dict insect protein could
be cost-competitive with
other feed options within
a few years as investments
and demand continue to
grow.
Chicken feed
Under a blanket of sun-
beams, Lisa Steele, a
fifth-generation
chicken
farmer in Maine, kneels
amid her flock. Her chick-
ens gently peck at her
open-palmed hand, which
holds black soldier fly
larvae.
Steele has been feeding
her chickens insect grubs
as a snack for a few years,
and likes the benefits they
offer.
“The black soldier fly
larvae are kind of neat,
because they also have a
ton of calcium and protein
in them ... so you’re kind
of getting like a one-two
punch,” she said. “Protein
and calcium are both super
important for chickens.
They need the protein to be
healthy but also the calcium
for strong egg shells, and
the calcium provides the
contractions that actually ...
help them lay the eggs.”
She also believes the
grubs may make her chick-
ens eat less feed because
they are satisfied with the
nutrients and vitamins
packed in the insects.
“Corn is in a lot of
chicken treats and that’s
just a filler; there’s not a lot
of nutrition in that. So the
chickens actually, by eat-
ing the grubs, I would guess
they’re eating less feed
because they’re getting a
lot of what they need from
those grubs,” she said.
Buzz kills
Besides its current lack
of efficiency, another buzz
kill that hinders the insect
industry is the stigma
of eating insects — for
humans and animal feed.
The Food and Drug Admin-
istration even labels insects
as “filth.”
Newcomb, of Chomper
Cricket Foods, said insect
snacks often fall in the
“novelty” sector and are
sold in gag shops, where
they are purchased as gifts
for unsuspecting friends.
“If they see it as a nov-
elty, it’s going to be harder
for it to be a profitable busi-
ness rather than habitual,”
she said, pointing toward
survival shows such as
“Fear Factor,” in which
contestants eat insects as
a challenge. Her long-
term goal is to see insects
become a regular item in
health-food stores.
In the sweltering heat of
a Pacific Northwest eve-
ning, Newcomb greets a
visitor who approaches her
at a farmers market. Near
her, a blue sign propped on
the table reads, “Eat Bugs!”
“So many people have
this apocalypse mindset
with insects. They’re like,
‘Well, I’ll eat it when the
world is ending’ or, ‘I’ll
eat it when all of our other
food is gone,’ Newcomb
told Capital Press. “And it’s
like, well, the world might
not end if we eat more
insects.”
Hay: #TimberUnity is vetting producers to make sure hay gets to those who need it
Continued from Page 1
Simon, who grows hay
and grain, said the basin
is experiencing a crisis
after the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation
announced
in May it would allocate
zero water for the Klam-
ath Project. The allocation
normally irrigates approx-
imately 200,000 acres of
farmland.
Without water for their
pastures, Simon said ranch-
ers are struggling to feed
their animals and, in some
cases, are selling off entire
herds to survive.
“They’re using up their
quota of hay for the win-
ter,” Simon said. “If they
had water for their pas-
tures, we wouldn’t be in
this situation right now.”
As a member of the
Tulelake Irrigation Dis-
trict, Simon said he has
some access to district
Holly Dillemuth/For the Capital Press
Football players from Lost River Junior/Senior High School helped unload hay donat-
ed by members of TimberUnity from all over the state.
wells, allowing him to
grow a portion of his nor-
mal crop. Others, he said,
aren’t so lucky.
#TimberUnity is vet-
ting producers in the area
to make sure the hay gets
to those who most need it,
Simon said.
This is the second con-
voy to travel to the basin
— the first, which arrived
July 24, brought nearly 200
tons of feed.
Since then, Webb said
donations have continued
to pour in from all over the
state, prompting the second
convoy.
“Just the generosity of
what we call the #Timbe-
rUnity family,” Webb said,
“it never ceases to amaze
me how much they give.”
Along with hay for
ranchers, Webb said #Tim-
berUnity began collect-
ing donations for victims
of the Bootleg Fire on July
24. The group distributed
78 Blue Barrels in 40 com-
munities, where people
could drop off things like
camping equipment, rub-
ber boots, generators and
batteries.
Webb said they have
teamed up with Cascade
Relief Team to collect the
barrels and bring donations
to the Bly Fire Department,
where a resource center was
established for victims.
One family even donated
an RV, which Webb said
will be given away to a
young couple that lost their
home in the blaze.
Over the last two years,
#TimberUnity has spear-
headed multiple donation
events to assist rural com-
munities reeling from nat-
ural disasters.
In February, the organi-
zation also collected loads
of firewood for homes that
lost power during winter
storms that dumped snow
and ice over parts of the
Northwest.
“It’s just a little group
of people who are out sav-
ing the state all the time,”
Webb said with a chuckle.
“The donations just come
pouring in, whether it’s
materials or people giving
us money or hauling hay. It
never stops.”