Livestock of the future? : insects

Cork boy 55

Livestock of the future? : insects
Are insects a livestock of future farming due to overpopulation cliamte change.
Anyone in Ireland looking into this?
I seen on BBC newsnight a piece on this
they said the dutch are getting well into this and showed a report
from a dutch farm

The advanatges are

More humane.
Safer (foot and mouth, mad cow etc)
Less meal-meat ratio.
Less carbon-meat ratio.
less waste
less space and water needed.

If you compare cows to insects, cows need 10 kilos of food to make 1 kilo of cow, but insects only need 1.25 kilos of food to make 1 kilo of insect. And don’t forget that cow waste – both unusable meat / bone and manure – is a lot more too!
videos and phots here
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/livestock-future-insects

Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis has advocated bugs as a healthy, green, alternative food, saying it is time to break old eating habits.
Insect dishes could be the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, he argued.
"Children don't have a problem with eating insects," he told Reuters.
Prof van Huis gives lectures, tastings and cookery classes with a master chef who prepares Dutch-farmed bugs.
The problem for adults is psychological, he said, and "only tasting and experience can make them change their minds".
Insects are a long-established food in some parts of the world such as Mexico and Thailand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12216355

vanderbadger

they would do less damage on soft ground as well
hard to see it catching on though i think, cant see peoples mindsets changing that much anytime soon

Cork boy 55

vanderbadger wrote: »

they would do less damage on soft ground as well
hard to see it catching on though i think, cant see peoples mindsets changing that much anytime soon

The guy on TV is saying the change will happen as meat/oil increases in price
over next few years. He has saying that the insects could be turned into
burgers nuggets and sauasages as processed foods rather than eaten
o nautral




I wonder would the Irish climate be good for this(not a farmer)

sh1tstirrer

What's their kill out %

redzerologhlen

sh1tstirrer wrote: »

What's their kill out %

100%....twud be great crack trying to fillet an ant:rolleyes:

blue5000

Think I'd prefer mine weelll done:pac:

Birdnuts

When people think insect they think bluebottle or dungfly:rolleyes:. The reality is that most insects are clean living species that can be eaten. A grasshopper for example has the same diet as a cow and so is perfectly edible. Indeed the likes of crab, lobster, shrimp are basically large insects that are already eaten widely.:)

sh1tstirrer

I have a better solution to the problem. Educate people about healthy eating eg. many people eat too much and are overweight. Every overweight persons diet would feed three normal sized people. Cattle numbers can stay as they are so there would be no need to eat bird food :rolleyes: Also people are too exact about best before dates and end up throwing out good food. The argument about cattle being bad for the environment isn't the case with grazed animals as the grass uses up carbon as it is continually growing.

red menace

Apparently the major difference between a locust and a prawn is that a prawn lives in water
It's a psychological block I have to eating locusts
Things would want to turn fairly bad before I would be tucking into a locust curry

fodda

sh1tstirrer wrote: »

I have a better solution to the problem. Educate people about healthy eating eg. many people eat too much and are overweight. Every overweight persons diet would feed three normal sized people. Cattle numbers can stay as they are so there would be no need to eat bird food :rolleyes: Also people are too exact about best before dates and end up throwing out good food. The argument about cattle being bad for the environment isn't the case with grazed animals as the grass uses up carbon as it is continually growing.

Sheep (some sheep) live on rough grass and cattle need quality grass which means high energy fertiliser and energy hungry silage for winter feed.

Also cattle are now becoming intensively farmed and fed on grain which is high energy hungry.

sh1tstirrer

fodda wrote: »

Sheep (some sheep) live on rough grass and cattle need quality grass which means high energy fertiliser and energy hungry silage for winter feed.

Also cattle are now becoming intensively farmed and fed on grain which is high energy hungry.

Grass absorbs carbon so it cancels out It's hard enough to make a profit with cattle being fed cheap grass never mind having intensively fed grain.

fodda

sh1tstirrer wrote: »

Grass absorbs carbon so it cancels out It's hard enough to make a profit with cattle being fed cheap grass never mind having intensively fed grain.

Intensive beef farms are a real thing and the reason they are fed grain is it is of a very much higher food value than grass with thousands of cattle in a small area.

Grass may absorb some carbon but it can never absorb the amount produced in the process of making fertiliser, herbicides, applications, cutting and processing storage of silage etc. Not forgetting energy and carbon produced in making and maintaining farm machinery and buildings just to keep cattle.

djmc

Without intensive farming, fertiliser, herbicides, etc there would not be enough
food to feed the world as it is.

Atilathehun

I'm getting in right away, before the rush starts.
First thing to do, is put up a crush:D

And don't forget, we have to keep the box tickers gainfully employed, so each and every insect will have to be tagged and tested:cool:

Now, let's plan out the fencing. The boundary walls will have to insect proof:P

Your man Neylon in Clare Marts, would be in his element selling a good insect:cool:

fodda

djmc wrote: »

Without intensive farming, fertiliser, herbicides, etc there would not be enough
food to feed the world as it is.

Exactly! Which is why we will soon be in the sh ite....because when fuel gets expensive as it is just starting to now, then so will food which for the past 40 or so years has been cheap and we have got used to it.

This means that energy hungry food will become very expensive and that is meat as animals have to eat vegetation in large quantities to produce a lesser quantity of meat.

If you are a farmer this means that you will get high prices for animals if you can find enough people who can afford your meat as most people will just eat less meat.... and you will have less stock as winter feed and energy hungry activities like silage will take all the profits from your animal rearing.

There really isnt anything or will be anything to replace cheap versatile oil.

Snails are also a bit of mini farming boom industry.

bbam

Jesus.
I'd rather a dog stirfry than a burger made of insects. Surely if we were to change from bovine beef we'd choose something with some meat on it's bones.

Butcher Boy

Try boning and rolling one!:P

pakalasa

It's the fencing that would bother me. If one of them hopped over the wall, they'd all be gone.:D

5live

It would do wonders for the tourist industry too.

Dad, can we go to Connemara on our school tour to see the beetle farms and locust fattening plains:rolleyes:

Rovi

All joking aside, this isn't all that outlandish.
We humans can eat and digest pretty much anything that was once 'alive' itself, animal or vegetable.
For various cultural, religious, and social reasons we here in the 1st World CHOOSE not to eat insects, invertebrates, cetaceans, and we also turn our noses up to carnivores, animals more usually regarded as pets, and offal.

Crickets, beetles, worms, grubs, whales/dolphins/porpoises, dogs, bears, horses, etc, are all regularly consumed as 'everyday' foodstuffs in plenty of places around the world, as are blood, giblets, and lots of other by-products that are considered unpalatable to our western sensibilities.

It works the other way too: try looking for a pork chop in the Middle East, or explain to a non-Irish person what goes into a delicious, mouth-watering, traditional Irish black pudding.

Username John

If they are put into foods like sausages and burgers and the likes - sure why not. They could well be better than some of the stuff going into the same products now

Just had a quick look at that page referenced in the first page
"The crates are stacked ten-high and placed in long rows in a warm, dark room. The beetles lay eggs which grow into larvae – the mealworms. The mealworms, living in these same crates, are fed carrots and whole wheat and allowed to grow until they’re big enough to be sifted out, sent into an early winter hibernation, and shipped off to be deep-frozen and packaged up."

The bits which jump out at me are
"warm, dark room"
"fed carrots and wholewheat"

Maybe in a world wide context, this is a good idea - from the efficiency perspective "cows need 10 kilos of food to make 1 kilo of cow, but insects only need 1.25 kilos of food to make 1 kilo of insect"

But... if you have grass outside your door, which a cow can eat vs having to buy imported grain to feed insects - it doesnt really stack up? Especially, if you are 'growing insects' due to high fuel prices?

I am all for looking at new food sources, and we prob shouldnt rule them out to eat ourselves as well.

OP - in response to your original question of "Anyone in Ireland looking into this?" - I would question are we best placed in the world for this?

fodda

Username John wrote: »

Maybe in a world wide context, this is a good idea - from the efficiency perspective "cows need 10 kilos of food to make 1 kilo of cow, but insects only need 1.25 kilos of food to make 1 kilo of insect"

But... if you have grass outside your door, which a cow can eat vs having to buy imported grain to feed insects - it doesnt really stack up? Especially, if you are 'growing insects' due to high fuel prices?

But how much grass can you grow unassisted 365 days of the year? If you cant grow 365 days then the silage costs have to be taken into account.

OP - in response to your original question of "Anyone in Ireland looking into this?" - I would question are we best placed in the world for this?

Maybe somewhere warmer?

On this same point why cant these insects be turned into high quality pig and chicken feed which is high energy grain based so replace it with what is really their natural food?

Username John

fodda wrote: »

But how much grass can you grow unassisted 365 days of the year? If you cant grow 365 days then the silage costs have to be taken into account.

Maybe somewhere warmer?

On this same point why cant these insects be turned into high quality pig and chicken feed which is high energy grain based so replace it with what is really their natural food?

Hello Fodda,

On the grass - yes, you would have to take silage into account.

I guess the question is
"In Ireland - are animals fed on a grass diet (incl silage in winter) still better for the environment / world, than insects fed on wheat?"

You would have to examine it in greater detail really, to see what the real answer is...
But my opinion would be animals on grass would be better. Also - I think they would taste better

Cork boy 55

For whom it may concern

website of VENIK (the association of Dutch insect growers),

http://www.venik.nl/index.php?res=low

blue5000

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

For whom it may concern

website of VENIK (the association of Dutch insect growers),

http://www.venik.nl/index.php?res=low

Do the dutch produce any proper food? A few years ago they had a machine that could produce milk, into it went the same food that went into a cow. The water that they drink has already been drunk, is it 6 times by the germans before it flows down the rhine to them:o

psychward

What happens when we discover it's all Soylent Green ?

johngalway

pakalasa wrote: »

It's the fencing that would bother me. If one of them hopped over the wall, they'd all be gone.:D

Can't wait to see the tagging system for these fellas...

Cork boy 55

blue5000 wrote: »

Do the dutch produce any proper food? A few years ago they had a machine that could produce milk, into it went the same food that went into a cow. The water that they drink has already been drunk, is it 6 times by the germans before it flows down the rhine to them:o

Dutch camel milk anyone

Netherland's 'crazy' camel farmer
Deep in the Dutch countryside, farmer Frank Smits runs Europe's only commercial camel farm.
The milk from these temperamental creatures is said to have unique health benefits, and recently Frank has been working with local chef Piet Hein Megens, who has invented a recipe for camel ice cream.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-15589766

5live

psychward wrote: »

What happens when we discover it's all Soylent Green ?

Only a matter of time;)