{"id":155194,"date":"2021-12-22T10:50:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T05:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=155194"},"modified":"2021-12-22T10:50:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T05:20:17","slug":"why-bugs-should-be-a-bigger-part-of-the-human-food-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-bugs-should-be-a-bigger-part-of-the-human-food-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"Why bugs should be a bigger part of the human food chain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>News: \u00a0<\/strong>Recently, the EU (European Union) approved the use of insects for human consumption.<\/p>\n<p>The decision paves the way for an alternative protein source that can play a critical role in food &amp; nutritional security. Further, the Insect protein Industry has huge economic and environmental potential.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How insect proteins can ensure sustainability in our food system?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Currently, the animal feed industry relies heavily on water and carbon-intensive farming of grains. Globally, animal farms consume more than a third of the world\u2019s total grain production.<\/p>\n<p>But the cost of agrochemical inputs is increasing, and freshwater resources are becoming increasingly unreliable.<\/p>\n<p>In this context, Insect proteins become a valuable indirect food source as feedstock for poultry, farmed fish, pork, and beef which are currently dependent on environmentally costly soy and corn feeds.<\/p>\n<p>Insect-based animal feeds could be this industry\u2019s best solution for building climate resilience, while also helping us manage a food waste crisis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How insect proteins are environmentally beneficial?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Consider the case of <strong>Black soldier fly larvae<\/strong> (BSFL). These infant bugs serve as high-quality chicken and fish feed.<\/p>\n<p>However, it requires 1,000 times less land per unit of protein produced compared to soy production, between 50 and 100 times less water, and zero agrochemical inputs.<\/p>\n<p>A notable advantage of BSFL is that they are fed with food waste. It can play a significant role in keeping the organic waste out of landfills and reclaiming those nutrients, so they can re-enter the food chain.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the larvae produce a valuable fertilizer rich with nitrogen and microorganisms as a by-product. It is capable of restoring soil quality and enhancing its carbon storage capacity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the present Challenges to the insect proteins Industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The issue of cost<\/strong>: While a unit of poultry feed costs several hundred dollars and fish feed costs about $1,000, insect feeds can cost more than $2,000. As the industry scales up, these costs are expected to rapidly decline.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What more needs to be done?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Need to focus on reforms in three key areas.<\/p>\n<p>-Increasing the varieties of bugs that can be farmed.<\/p>\n<p>-Expanding the uses for these insect proteins. Now permitted only in certain pet foods and limited poultry and aquaculture applications.<\/p>\n<p>-Enabling insect farmers to utilize post-consumer food waste.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> This post is based on the article \u201c<strong>Why bugs should be a bigger part of the human food chain<\/strong>\u201d published in <strong>Livemint<\/strong> on <strong>21<sup>st<\/sup> Dec<\/strong> 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News: \u00a0Recently, the EU (European Union) approved the use of insects for human consumption. The decision paves the way for an alternative protein source that can play a critical role in food &amp; nutritional security. Further, the Insect protein Industry has huge economic and environmental potential. How insect proteins can ensure sustainability in our food&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-bugs-should-be-a-bigger-part-of-the-human-food-chain\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why bugs should be a bigger part of the human food chain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10501],"class_list":["post-155194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}