Wednesday 22nd of february I attended a special lecture on edible insects. It is a lecture composing an evening course organized by Wageningen University only once every two years: “Insects and Society”
The course can be followed not only by the students of Wageningen, but also by external public. Is is infact, a way to raise interest among people about the importance of the insect for our society, in every context, from the agricultural sector to Art and Music.
Two lectures were presenting at this evening: Prof. Arnold van Huis, a recently retired Wageningen Professor who was one of the first researcher to bring in Europe the subject about the potential of using insects as a food source, and one the main writers of the book “Edible insects”. He explained the importance of insects, and the benefits that insects can bring to society. He focused on the comparison of common “animal protein” food, and showed that insects are extremely better in land use and water use performances. It is extremely more efficient in the conversion of the feed into edible protein, and last but not least, it can be fed on waste. Obviously, a bit of time was spent into European regulations, that will change by the end of the year. This will be probably the crucial step by which we will be able to assess the true potential of the edible insect industry.
The second lecturer was Ger Van Der Wal, an insect entrepreneur that founded “Insect Europe” and grows crickets in the Netherlands for food purposes. His speech was enthusiastic. He told us about all the struggle of creating an enterprise that produces insect as food and feed, especially because of the high waste of energy for convincing and inviting people to not be scared or disgusted about insects. His company produces now, many Tons of crickets in a year, and they have the idea to start a “contract farming” brach of the company in order to increase the production and share the costs with other people or companies. In fact, one of the thing that is mostly needed for insects to become competitive in the market, is the growth in production volumes. Additionally, a strong part regarding safety and hygiene rules was brought by the lecturer, and this is one of the most challenging part of insect rearing cause they it has to work in accordance with livestock regulation, in every aspect, slaughtering included.
During the break between one lecture and the other we had the opportunity to try some delicious insects snack prepared for the occasion, mealworm tortillas and other delicious insect snacks that, due to the huge queue, I was not able to taste…
A special lecture on edible insects
Alberto Zamprogna
