March, a BBC documentary will show food writer Stefan Gates looking for and eating deep-fried locusts and barbecued spiders. But, behind all the jokes there is a very serious message. Many experts believe there is a clear environmental benefit to humans eating insects. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been funding projects since 2011 that aim to promote the eating and farming of insects in south-east Asia and Africa, where an estimated two billion people already eat insects and larvae as a regular part of their diet. In 2012, the FAO published a list of 1,909 edible species of insect and plans a major international conference on “this valuable food source” in 2013.
Why does the FAO fund projects in south-east Asia and Africa?
To encourage more people to start eating insects To convince two billion people who don’t have enough food to start eating insects To show that eating insects is a serious issue To make people healthier for relatively little cost