I'll do my best to capture it's beauty...
You might be aware that industrial agriculture has been wreaking havoc on the planet. Commercial farming requires deforestation and it also pollutes the environment. Industrial fishing is depleting the oceans. What's needed is a sustainable food revolution, and here it comes...
Insects are Nature's best converters of waste into Proteins & Fats. Pound for pound, Bugs convert food into biomass more efficiently than cows, pigs, fish and even chickens (chickens are very efficient). This insect efficiency will be used to revolutionize food systems on Earth and will even solve the major issues.
One of the major issues in our food supply chains is waste. Restaurants, Breweries and farms produce byproducts & used/rotten foods which are wasted or composted. Insects will thrive on these byproducts and used foods, turning them into rich larvae and frass (excrement). The larvae can feed humans or livestock, the frass goes back into the soil to serve as rich compost.
Feeding livestock is unsustainable right now because many farms feed their animals fish, which are overharvested from the oceans. One study(1) claims that 1/3 of fish caught worldwide are used as animal feed. By raising bugs on waste and feeding them to livestock, you close the loop and eliminate the need for this input from the seas. Not to mention that insects are nature's prefered way of feeding chickens, so take a hint, humans!
Of course, livestock are also sustained by grains and soy. A major issue with commercial agriculture is space- grains and soy couldn't be mass produced until countless acres of forest were cut down, and that includes rainforest. Insects can be grown in a small footprint by stacking bug bins in a warehouse or even a basement. Cattle shouldn't eat bugs, but pigs, chicken and fish certainly should. Feeding them this way would eliminate the need to continue cutting down forests and deplete the oceans.
There are engineers designing systems use this waste to raise insects in spaces that are as small as possible. My favorite example is Entocycle in London, they can produce 1 ton of protein per week in a room that is 4 meters cubed, and right in the heart of London. Check them out...
This industry is fueled by radical thinking, which is what humanity needs in order to break out of its self-destructive habits.
As a bug rancher myself, I'm exciting to launch this new blog to inform you and to update you about my innovations. I've already had some success, I've turned 24 Darkling Beetles into 400 and I'm currently designing new habitats and larvae capturing devices. Wish me luck!
