Clinton Grants $1 Million To Edible Insect Farmers

An anonymous reader writes "Former US President Bill Clinton, through the Clinton Global Initiative, has awarded $1 million to a group of Canadian MBA students who are looking to solve urban hunger by feeding people insects. The students will use this as seed money for their start-up, Aspire Food Group, which aims to farm, produce, and sell edible insects as a way of solving world hunger, particularly in slums. Aspire says it will even work toward replacing livestock farms with insect farms in some areas." Insects as food aren't necessarily incompatible with conventional livestock, either.

Comments

God and Cockroaches

[Surak_Prime]

Human teeth show every sign of being shaped, at least in part, to consume insects, and we possibly developed long fingers to dig them out of hiding places, too. I'm not religious, but sometimes I can't help but think of a monkey-like God looking down on all of mankind's problems with famine and hunger and yelling, "For My sake, mankind, I gave you the cockroach! An unlimited food source - you can't wipe the little bastards out if you try!"

Re:Yecch!

[h4rr4r]

I would bet money you have eaten plenty of insects in your life. You may not have noticed, but check out how many insect parts are allowed in various kinds of processed foods one time.

Re:Insect eating elitist-meme

[Nadaka]

There is a long term trend towards sustainable farming practices. Cows take up vastly more land per lb of protein produced. The trend is to try and move primary protein source towards something more efficient, like sheep or chickens. But you don't get much more efficient than insects.

HEADLINE

[noh8rz10]

ftfh:

Clinton Grants $1 Million To Edible Insect Farmers

why would anybody want to eat insect farmers?

Re:Conversion Rates of insects is better.

[CastrTroy]

I don't even think it matters how cheap it is. It won't stop people from starving in third world countries. Even if the food is free, you still have to get it to the impoverished nation, which can cost quite a bit, especially with inland areas. Sure they could cultivate their own land, farm their own bugs, but they could do that with the crops and livestock we currently have. The reason they don't is because their who system is completely messed up. You could have a farm, but someone could come around and burn all your crops, and kill all your livestock because there is no rule of law. Lack of food isn't really a supply or cost issue to do with the food itself, but more a problem with the way the social and political systems are set up where people are starving.