A cricket farm in NY

Interview with Adam Brody, founder of Cricket Farm New York

I first ate insects during a school field trip to a science museum when I was eight years old.  Kids are always told “bugs are gross!” and it made a big impact on me, getting permission to do something that was such a cultural taboo.  As an adult, I spent a few summers apprenticing on organic cattle and pork farms and I enjoyed working with the animals, but struggled with killing them and also knew that this model of ecological farming and open pastures wasn’t possible on a global scale.  Somehow, these two experiences came together and led me to insects. My main interest was having a daily connection to farming, and a connection to my food, in Brooklyn.  Once I began researching the incredible environmental advantages of farming insects over beef, pork, chicken, fish, and even nuts & beans, I became fully committed to the project.

The aim of Cricket Farm is to empower people to play an active role in changing their attitudes about eating insects as food. In a perfect world, I would like for every home–or at least every town– to have a cricket farm.  On a deeper level, the project is also about people having a more connected relationship to the deep human experience of caring for an animal that will ultimately become supper.  Even though crickets are not as “complex” as mammals and birds, they are still profoundly alive and special.  As some insect farms move to automation and AI farming, I think humans ultimately miss out on this experience.

What does “nomadic farm” means?

One wonderful thing about crickets is that they don’t take up that much space to farm, and they can be farmed in portable and moveable containers. Producing 1kg of beef takes 200 square meters of land (and has a long-lasting impact on the land), whereas producing 1kg of cricket takes less than 15 square meters.  To me, nomadic farm means that I can take my crickets with me and start farms anywhere in the world.  In one handful of dirt, I could have over one thousand cricket eggs, which have an exponential capacity to produce more crickets.  I think about this a lot as we face increasing climate change, global warfare, refugee crises, displacement– all of these catastrophes threaten the investment that people make in their food security.  A cricket farm is amazing because you can bring it with you; it is an emblem of security and hope in an uncertain world.

In New York City,  I would say that there is a growing interest in eating insects, in both the gourmet and novelty markets, in which intrepid foodies are seeking out new and exciting things to eat.   I think there is also growing interest from people who wouldn’t want to eat a pile of roasted crickets, but who are interested in buying cricket flour for its nutritional benefits.

Could urban farming (in general) be an effective contributor to our food safety (in terms of food availability)?
Yes, I think so! My goal is that insect farming becomes more of a domestic and community endeavor, instead of a large-scale commercial enterprise.  As insects become more popular as a consumer-based product, they must be produced in factories, shipped in trucks, stored in warehouses, and put on shelves in markets.  These supply chains are connected to all of the other environmental and social problems that mass-production causes and are also subject to the vulnerabilities that mass-consumption is subject to, in terms of food safety.  Furthermore, the commercial resources and infrastructure necessary for mass-production reduce the environmental benefit of eating insects in the first place.  I think we’ve already seen, with the popularization and commercialization of the organic food movement, that if we want actual change, we need to address the systems themselves, not just the nature of the products that are being distributed.

What are your plans for the next two years?
I’m planning to create a curriculum for teachers that will introduce their kids to cricket farming and making a cricket farm as a classroom project.  Exposing children to eating and raising insects is a grassroots endeavor, and in many ways more of a long term investment than converting “early adopter” adults to entomophagy. I also plan on opening a non-profit storefront that is a model cricket farm in New York City, where people can learn more about raising crickets and eating them. I also think it will be a wonderful oasis from the city, to sit and listen to the wonderful singing of crickets.