What exactly is the food crisis? When I first heard of it, I though it was just about people dying of starvation due to maybe drought/floods that led to famine because farms were wiped out and food stores/silos eventually ran out of food. And while this may be part of it, it's not exactly ALL of it. With soaring food prices, many may/will not be able to afford food even though it is actually there. This is mostly visible in major cities all over the world, in developed as well as developing economies. In these major cities, one is torn as to whether to buy soda or water to quench their thirst. For a meal, one is torn between having fast/junk food or having a meal that isn't fast/junk food. The reality in these major cities is that a bottle of water is much more expensive than a bottle of soda of equal quantity. Fast food and junk food is much more affordable than fresh produce. This is a contributing factor to another crisis i.e. the health crisis. The increased demand from the ever growing human race population, rising fuel prices, poor weather ruining harvests, and a shift to bio-fuel production leave the consumer paying more for basic staples and is having its hardest impact on poorer nations. So we have populations that are suffering from famine to populations that have food but can't afford it.

In Kenya, we both of these situations are evident. In 2015/2016, we experienced a period of prolonged drought followed by the El-Nino rains which brought upon us massive flooding. We went from dying of heatstroke to drowning. Yes, global warming had a major part in it. Yes, our meteorologists had warned us prior to the drought and the floods and we tried our best to be well prepared. However, the damage was much more than we anticipated. Agriculture, the backbone of our economy, took a huge hit. Crops neither survived the drought nor the floods. Thankfully, we have Katumani maize, a breed of genetically modified maize that was developed by our scientists in the early 1970s to survive drought, but that too didn't survive the floods. Fish farms too didn't survive. The ones that made it through the drought didn't see the end of the floods. Our silos took us through much of the period but at some point the government had to bring in food supplies from other countries because the silos were quickly running out. Food prices quadrupled. Everything basically quadrupled in price. Now that that trying period is behind us, we are looking to other types of food, save the conventional, thus the idea of insects as food. The idea of bugs being eaten as food is not new as there are many communities around the globe that enjoy insect-based delicacies. In Kenya, for instance, we have the Luhya community. Members of this community enjoy eating a variety of insects including termites and ants. But how exactly are insects a possible solution to alleviating the food crisis?

First of all, insects are good sources of protein. Consumption of meat has increased threefold since the 1970s and is expected to have doubled by 2050. This is a prompt to look for other protein sources. And while vegans may have you believe that you can get proteins from plants (which is true, as a matter of fact), plant protein is very different from animal protein. As any serious doctor would advise you, on going on an animal-product free diet, you will need to consume some supplements to make up for the vitamins/minerals that the body acquires from animal protein of which lack thereof could lead to problems such as pernicious anaemia and steatorrhea, among others. As hard as it may be to believe, supplements are a luxury that most people cannot afford. Alternative animal protein sources such as insects are therefore very important. Depending on the species, insects contain between 30 and 70 percent protein, and are a good source of essential fatty acids, vitamins (in particular the B vitamins) and minerals (such as iron and zinc).

Secondly, insects have a lesser breeding time than other animals which contributes to their low prices on the food market. They also take less space to farm. They are also are far more efficient than livestock perhaps 10 times so in transforming feed into edible meat. This is because they are cold-blooded and do not use energy to maintain a constant high body temperature. For that reason, they convert feed more efficiently to body mass. To produce one kilogram of meat, a cricket needs 1.7 kilogram of feed significantly less than a chicken (2.2), pig (3.6), sheep (6.3), and cow (7.7). Additionally, the edible proportion after processing is much higher for insects it's 80 percent in crickets than for pork (70 percent), chicken (65 percent), beef (55 percent), and lamb (35 percent).

Thirdly, they are much more beneficial to the environment than the animals we conventionally get our animal protein from. Studies show that intensification of industrial livestock production could increase health and environmental costs, such as contamination of surface and groundwater with nutrients, heavy metals and pathogens acidification of ecosystems because of ammonia emissions and use of huge amounts of fresh water (40,000 liters for one kilogram of beef). Besides, high-density animal production systems increase livestock disease incidence, and new, often antibiotic-resistant diseases emerge. Ruminants also emit large amounts of the greenhouse gas methane by enteric fermentation. Insects largely avoid the huge greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other environmental pollutants, associated with cows and pigs. Fun fact: the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimates that 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions is derived from livestock. Given that greenhouse gas emissions leads to global warming which in turn leads to climate changes such as the kind we have experienced here in Kenya (prolonged periods of drought followed by prolonged periods of floods) which in turn cause huge losses in the agricultural sector which in turn brings upon a food crisis, I'd say that these insects are starting to sound like unicorns: too good to be true. But they are true.

In addition to that, rearing of insects is independent of climate change. So how come they are frowned upon by many as food sources? Most of this has to do with culture. What is order to the spider is chaos to fly (insect pun intended). For instance, in China, toads are a delicacy. In Kenya, the though of toads as a delicacy makes people go 'EW'. Most cultures view insects the same way. For instance, in my community, the Agikuyu, when I started talking about people eating insects, they all looked at me with a mixture of confusion and disgust. However, I would like to remind them that our ancestors frowned with disgust at the thought of eating fish and were introduced to the idea by Cushites, long before the colonization era. They took upon the idea when crop farming was no longer enough to produce for everyone. That said, I do recognize the fact that everyone has a right to eat whatever they want and that it is not fair to force someone to eat anything they don't want to. I myself cringe at the idea of having insects as staple food. However, in an effort to take one for the team, I visited Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (JKUAT) to have a taste of various cricket delicacies.  This was after JKUAT was featured in a news article for pioneering a new research project aimed to upscale cricket farming in Kenya to foster food and nutrition security.The crickets are reared and harvested after which some are cooked whole while others are used to make flour which can be used to make a variety of baked goods such as cakes and cookies. For someone with an allergy to gluten such as I do, any baked goods that are gluten-free are hard to find here, therefore this cricket flour is highly appreciated. I did try a cookie made out of cricket flour, but that is as far as I went (one step at a time).

N.B. While I would have liked to document that auspicious moment when I first ate cricket cookies, I did not get the chance to do that as I had gone to visit my brother who studies at JKUAT and while I was there I had the impulsive idea to try eating some insects.


References.

1.The ATLANTIC: Can we end hunger by eating bugs?
2.The Scientist: Bugs can solve the food crisis.
3. JKUAT website.
4. Daily Nation feature.